Georges H. Laurent Art

Franz Iffland (1862 Tempelhof - 1935 Berlin), Javelin thrower, after 1910. Olive-black patinated bronze with cast plinth mounted on a white-veined black marble base (7 cm high). Tota...

An official artist of the Nazi regime, trained in Montparnasse in the 1930s, Arno Breker continued to sculpt after the fall of the Third Reich, producing large-scale public commissions in Germany and portraits of prominent figures. The two small bronzes presented here, dated around 1978, are part of a long tradition of prancing horses dating back to antiquity. The asymmetrical treatment of the two front legs and the inclination of the head make these two copies of the same artwork a highly decorative pair. 1. Arno Breker, a prolific sculptor, from the Bohemia of Montparnasse to the commissions from the Third Reich ... and from the Federal Republic of Germany The son of a stone carver, Arno Breker studied fine art and anatomy in his native Elberfeld. At the age of 20, he entered the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. He moved to Paris in 1926, where he continued his training in the studio of Maillol, who dubbed him "the German Michelangelo of the twentieth century". He shared a studio with Alexandre Calder and frequented Jean Cocteau, Foujita, Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and other artists of the bohemian Paris of the time. It was also in Paris in 1933 that he met Demetra Messala, the daughter of a Greek diplomat who posed for Maillol and Picasso, whom he married in 1937. Having won the Prussian Prix de Rome in 1932, he left Paris to stay at the Villa Massimo, the German Academy in Rome. Returning to Germany in 1934, his style evolved towards a more marked imitation of ancient sculpture. He created two monumental statues for Berlin's Olympic Stadium, before being appointed professor at the Berlin College of Fine Arts in 1937. He came to the attention of the Reich Propaganda Ministry, which awarded him several commissions and provided him with three large studios in which Breker produced many monumental sculptures to the glory of the regime. On June 23, 1940, Breker accompanied Adolf Hitler during a visit to Paris. During the Occupation, his political connections enabled him to intervene on behalf of many artists pursued by the Nazis: for example, he protected Pablo Picasso (then a Communist) from Kommandantur officers. Most of Arno Breker's work was destroyed in Berlin at the end of the war in 1945 by bombing and intentional destruction perpetrated by soldiers of the victorious powers. After the fall of the Nazi regime, however, Arno Breker was never prosecuted. He opened a new studio in Düsseldorf, where he sculpted until his death in 1991. He then carried out several public commissions in Germany (Bayreuth, Wuppertal), as well as portraits of numerous personalities, including King Mohammed V of Morocco, Léopold Sedar Senghor (commissioned by the Académie Française in 1978) and the two chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. The Arno Breker Museum in Nörvenich is now exhibiting some of his artworks. 2. Related artworks: from the Wild Horses of the Quirinal to the Horses of Marly The prancing horse is a major iconographic theme, found in a series of sculptures from Antiquity, the Renaissance and the Classical Age. Various photos from Arno Breker's studio in Berlin confirm the predominant place of equine representations in his work (alongside male nude statues), and confirm that this reduced version created in 1978 is part of the artist's preferred repertoire. Prancing horses are generally associated with a male figure in a group that, through a reference drawn from Antiquity, symbolizes man's domination over nature. In this respect, it is very interesting to compare our small bronzes with the horse forming part of a large sculpture by Arno Breker (made in 1936 and probably destroyed in 1945) depicting Alexander taming Bucephalus. This statue is itself directly inspired by one of the best-known works of 18th-century French sculpture...

"La Comete" Iconic French Art Deco Silvered Bronze 1920s Female Nude Maurice Guirard-Riviere (1881 - 1947) La Comete Silvered bronze 23 inches wide x 19 3/4 inches high x 5 1/2 inc...

"Mercury" NYC 1931 Bronze 5th Ave Traffic Light Sculpture American Art Deco WPA In the late 1920s, Joseph Freedlander was asked by the City of New York ...

Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer and pianist, is considered to be one of the most important composers of the 20th century. Conceived in 1947 while Wein was in Rome after having been a...

French Art Deco bronze sitting nude by F. Trinque, 1930. A gorgeous Art Deco woman stretching her arms and drying her back with a towel possibly after a swim or bath with a rich gold...

Cold Painted Austrian Bronze Table Lamp and Sculpture of a lounging Arab man. Signed with one of Zach's pseudonyms "K. Salat" Size: 16 1/2 inches high Artist Bio: Bruno Zach (6 Ma...

Edition number : 1/8 ; Draws 8 + 4 Certificate : seal and signature by Dominique Mufraggi on the work and on the original certificate Dominique Mufraggi was born in 1958. He was gr...

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (American, 1880-1980) The Vine, 1921 Bronze with brown and green patina Height: 11.5 inches (29.2 cm) high on a 3/4 inches (1.9 cm) high marble base Inscrib...

David Hostetler cast this bronze from an original wood carving, as most of his bronzes originate. This sculpture was the original model for unique ver...

PROF. ERNST SEGER 1868 Neurode - 1939 Berlin STANDING SEAMSTRESS Very rare bronze with exceptional figure representation. Bronze, dark patinated, on a square marble base (H. 3 cm)....

Wonderful sculpture in bronze titled "Petrouchka II" by contemporary New York City artist Martin Glick. Born in 1944, Martin Glick resides in Pomona, New York, just outside of New York City. He was taught by Conger Metcalf...