David Shrigley Figurative Sculptures

Bisque bust with ploychrome enamel decorated with painted gilt and raised on a circular socle with a square plinth. After Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse by Ferdinand and Bing Co. an ...

This remarkably fluid terracotta bozetto was made in preparation for Pietro Pacilli’s most important public commission, a large-scale marble statue of San Camillo de Lellis for the nave of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Expressively modelled, this terracotta sculpture is a rare and significant work made by a major Roman sculptor at a transformative moment of European sculpture. Pacilli began his working life on the great Baroque decorative projects initiated in the seventeenth century, but he found success as a restorer of ancient sculpture working to finish antiquities for a tourist market, becoming an important figure in the emergence of an archaeologically minded Neoclassicism. Pacilli trained Vincenzo Pacetti and provided important decorative work for the Museo Pio-Clementino, at the same time he is recorded restoring some of the most celebrated antiquities excavated and exported during the period. Pacilli was born into a family of Roman craftsmen, his father Carlo was a wood carver, and Pacilli is recorded working with him on the Corsini Chapel in San Giovanni Laternao as early as 1735. In 1738 his terracotta model of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife won the first prize in the second class of the sculpture concorso at the Accademia di San Luca, this is particularly notable as Bartolomeo Cavaceppi came third. He worked as a carver and stuccoist completing works for the churches of San Marco and SS. Trinita dei Domeniciani Spagnoli. Pacilli operated as a sculptor and restorer of antiquities from his studio at the top of the Spanish Steps, close to Santa Trinita dei Monti, where he is listed as a potential vendor to the Museo Pio-Clementino in 1770. In 1763 Pacilli completed a silver figure of San Venanzio for the treasury of San Venanzio. He is recorded as Pacetti’s first master and it was evidently through Pacilli that he began to acquire his facility as a restorer of ancient sculpture. Pacilli, at his studio ‘poco prima dell’Arco della Regina alla Trinita dei Monti,’ exercised, what the nineteenth-century scholar, Adolf Michaelis called ‘rejuvenating arts’ on several important pieces of classical sculpture, including in 1760 the group of a Satyr with a Flute for the natural brother of George III, General Wallmoden, Hanovarian minister at Vienna. In 1765, Dallaway and Michaelis record that Pacilli was responsible for the restorations, including the addition of a new head, to the Barberini Venus which he had acquired from Gavin Hamilton. The Venus was then sold to Thomas Jenkins, who in turn passed it on to William Weddell at Newby Hall. In 1767 Pacilli exported a series of ancient busts ‘al naturale’ including portraits of Antinous, Julius Ceaser and Marus Aurelius, also a statue of a Muse and a Venus. As early as 1756 Pacilli seems to have been operating as an antiquarian, helping to disperse the collection of the Villa Borrioni. Pacilli supplied sculpture to notable British collectors, including Charles Townley, who on his first trip to Italy purchased the Palazzo Giustiniani statue of Hecate from Pacilli. Pacilli was involved with the Museo Pio Clementino from its conception, supplying busts of Julius Ceaser and a Roman Woman as well as completing stucco putti surmounting the arms of Pope Bendedict XIV to signal the entrance to the new Museo Critiano. In 1750 Il Diario Ordinario del Chracas announced that Pacilli had begun work on a sculpture of San Camillo de Lellis for St Peter’s. Camillo de Lellis founded his congregation, the Camillians, with their distinctive red felt crosses stitched on black habits in 1591. Having served as a soldier in the Venetian army, Camillo de Lellis became a novitiate of the Capuchin friars, he moved to Rome and established a religious community for the purpose of caring for the sick. In 1586 Pope Sixtus V formerly recognised the Camillians and assigned them to the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rome. Camillo de Lellis died in 1614 and was entombed at Santa Maria Maddalena, he was canonised by Benedict XIV on June 26, 1746. It was an occasion that prompted the Camillians to make a number of significant artistic commissions, including two canvases by Pierre Subleyras showing episodes from San Camillo’s life which they presented to Benedict XIV. In 1750 Pacilli was commissioned to fill one of the large niches on the north wall of the nave with a sculpture of San Camillo. The present terracotta bozetto presumably had two important functions, to enable Pacilli to work out his ideas for the finished sculpture and at the same time to show his design to the various commissioning bodies. In this case it would have been Cardinal Alessandro Albani and Monsignor Giovan Francesco Olivieri, the ‘economo’ or treasurer of the fabric of St Peter’s. Previously unrecorded, this terracotta relates to a smaller, less finished model which has recently been identified as being Pacilli’s first idea for his statue of San Camillo. Preserved in Palazzo Venezia, in Rome, the terracotta shows San Camillo with his left hand clutching his vestments to his breast; the pose and action more deliberate and contained than the finished sculpture. In producing the present terracotta Pacilli has expanded and energised the figure. San Camillo is shown with his left hand extended, his head turned to the right, apparently in an attempt to look east down the nave of St Peter’s. The model shows Pacilli experimenting with San Camillo’s costume; prominently on his breast is the red cross of his order, whilst a sense of animation is injected into the figure through the billowing cloak which is pulled across the saint’s projecting right leg. The power of the restrained, axial contrapposto of bent right leg and outstretched left arm, is diminished in the final sculpture where a baroque fussiness is introduced to the drapery. What Pacilli’s terracotta demonstrates, is that he conceived the figure of San Camillo very much in line with the immediate tradition of depicting single figures in St Peter’s; the rhetorical gesture of dynamic saint, arm outstretched, book in hand, head pointed upwards was perhaps borrowed from Camillo Rusconi’s 1733 sculpture of St. Ignatius...

Guillaume Couffignal (French b. 1964) Theatre, 2014. Bronze. 19 7/8 x 13 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches. Signed on the base: Couffignal. Beautiful texture and patina. Guillaume Couffignal is a French Postwar & Contemporary self taught, outsider artist who was born in 1964. He works in bronze casting complex, fantastic, architecture models, abstract theater and boat models that look like relics from the past. He learned the art of lost wax casting with a traditional African foundry in Koudougou, Burkina Faso in Africa when he was 23, blessed to find his way so young. He felt the deep alchemy of the process combining the elements of Nature to produce a concept that did not previously exist in our world. He saw the potential of this earth magic. It forces chance and pushes the limits of bronze because each sculpture can never be exactly reproduced. Like the use of clay, this art has a deep connection with the primitive elements of Nature. There is the wind and the sky and the earth and the fire. There are ashes and dust. Here exists a collaboration with the spirit of the Illusionist, an artist in all his unpredictability. But it is not an art of chance. The Illusionist / artist masters the elements of accident and surprise. He is a magician who controls the secrets of his process. In the case of Couffignal, this has to do with the three-dimensional collage of carefully chosen fragments and shapes and with its earth-like textures, carefully perfected over many years of experimentation. Its textures make the materials lie. They have an irregular patina of wear and bad weather. They make bronze itself secondary with this creamy pigmentation of the earth burnt by the sun. The texture then becomes a painting. Couffignal sets the scene for the pure drama of the void. He fills it with memories and voices. This decor is visually minimal, but this very minimalism points to the importance of his other intentions. Its boats are "soul boats" caught between two universes. Its architectural pieces evoke ruins and nevertheless attest to their own existence. Although this process is ancient, and in this case learned from the African tradition, the true testimony of the power of Guillaume Couffignal is that not a single element of his work derives from something existing. As a true iconoclast, he has taken up a traditional language, learned this language, and starting from this language has created a poetry completely unique and unique to him. Randal Morris, 2013. His work is from the tradition of outsider art, art brut, folk art, naïve art, visionary art and intuitive art with a sophisticated subject matter. A kind of symbiosis of jean Dubuffet and Daniel Arsham. Sculptures as forgotten images of a world where the trace always precedes presence. As in the art of raku, ancestral Japanese pottery where the cooking accident and the patina of use - wabi and sabi - testify to an intimate cosmogonic geography. Omnipresent memory of the color and the smell of the earth - mud, noble material which in Africa is used to erect huts, houses, palaces and mosques. Historically and up to the margins of the caravan route, on the borders of the great Arabic Muslim...

A whimsical yet very strong piece depicting the two figures from Gillie and Marc's iconic figures of the Dog/Bunny Human Hybrid, which has picked up much esteem across the globe. Her...

Weigt of the sculpture 2,15 kg Monika Zadurska-Bielak, Graduated from the studio of Prof. Franciszek Duszeńko at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Acade...

Robert Indiana LOVE (Pink), Artist Authorized, with Incised Indianapolis Museum of Art & Morgan Foundation Stamp and Artist Copyright, 2011 Brushed Aluminum (Pink) and Stamped with M...

Tête de Faune, Picasso, Unique work, 1960's, Terracotta, Tiles, Design, Sculptur Tête de faune Unique work 14.03.1961 Painted and glazed terracotta tile...

Eladio de Mora-Granados, dEmo, is one of the most original creators on the Spanish art scene. Born in Mora, Toledo, in 1960. A self-taught artist, dEmo's concerns began when he conc...

Robert Indiana LOVE (Sculpture Stamped with Indianapolis Museum and Artist Stamp), 2009 Brushed Aluminum (Gold) Stamped with Artist's Copyright & Indianapolis Museum of Art/2011 Morgan Art Foundation/ARS, NY Stamped/incised w/text: "Authorized Replica/Robert Indiana/LOVE/Indianapolis Museum of Art/2011 Morgan Art Foundation/ARS, NY 3 × 3 × 1 1/2 inches Unframed Since first appearing on the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 Christmas card, Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” quickly permeated the popular imagination, appearing everywhere from life-size sculptures to government-issued stamps. The design’s appeal was timeless, yet also emblematic of the idealistic and free-loving 1960s. As art legend has it, Indiana was first bemused and later conflicted about the instant runaway success of his design, worried that it may have ruined his reputation among the art world elite as a one-hit wonder. Despite the artist’s private insecurities, “LOVE” remains one of the most treasured works in 20th-century American sculpture—breaking $4.1 million at auction in 2011. Another edition from this authorized, artist approved series recently sold at Christie's in Paris for over $12,000. LOVE (Limited Edition Artist Authorized, with Incised Indianapolis Museum of Art & Morgan Foundation Stamp and Artist Copyright). This is a limited edition artist authorized miniature of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's giant outdoor...

A whimsical yet very strong piece depicting the Rabbit and Weim from Gillie and Marc's iconic figures of the Dog/Bunny Human Hybrid, which has picked up much esteem across the globe....

The sculpture is signed below, inside Tomasz Bielak born in Lublin in 1967. He graduated of The Academy of Fine Arts, Painting and Graphics Design Department in Gdańsk, in 1994. He realized installation art, graphics press, large format murals, sculpture and painting. In all these areas, in addition to artistic workshop, the most important thing is his message of the work, the message contained therein. He believe that "art" is one of many languages (perhaps even more sophisticated than others) that humanity learned to lead the discourse at a level different than just verbal. He indentify with the principle "if you have nothing to say - be quiet...

This masterpiece is exhibited in the Zimmerman Gallery, Carmel CA. Dive into the whimsical realm of mystique with this utterly enchanting totem. Crafted with meticulous detail, this...