BALTASAR LOBO

(1910-1993)

L'Eveil sur socle 113cm (44 1/2in). high

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Galería Freites.

Provenance
Galería Freites, Caracas (acquired directly from the artist's studio).
Private collection, Caracas (acquired from the above).
Private collection, Madrid and Florida (acquired from the above circa 2014).

Literature
Exh. cat., Baltasar Lobo, Caracas, 1993 (another cast illustrated p. 26).
K. de Barañano, M.L. Cárdenas & M. Jaume, Catálogo razonado de esculturas de Baltasar Lobo, Vol. II, Madrid, 2021, no. 9103 (another cast illustrated p. 450).

'As always, my current work is figurative, meaning abstract. It necessarily starts with figuration becomes abstraction that is simplified and synthesised' – Baltasar Lobo

Throughout his oeuvre, Baltasar Lobo continuously explored the female form and the sensuality of its soft volumes in a variety of dynamic poses. Goddesses, fisherwomen, bathers, centaurs, mothers who smother their babies with kisses or lull them to sleep, incarnations of the moon and urban coquetry - the female nude, the nature of the feminine, remained his favourite subject.

Lobo was born in a small rural village in Zamora, north of Spain. His determination to learn and become a sculptor took him first to the city of Valladolid where he attended sculpture modelling courses. Soon after, he moved to Madrid where he enrolled in the Academia de San Fernando. It was here that he first discovered Picasso and the international avant-garde, visiting the city's exhibitions and museums. Lobo encountered the primitive Iberian and Cycladic sculptures displayed in the Archaeological Museum, which would inspire the deliberate simplicity and reduction of forms in his own work.

Following the bombing of his studio in the Spanish Civil War, Lobo fled Madrid and moved to Paris where Picasso introduced him to the circle of émigré artists in Montparnasse who became known as the École de Paris. Included in this circle were fellow sculptors Henri Laurens and Jacques Lipchitz. Working closely with Laurens in his studio in the 1940s, Lobo discovered his affinity for the female figure. By the 1950s, Lobo parted ways with Laurens and developed his uniquely elegant and polished style inspired more by the work of Constantin Brâncuşi and Jean Arp. In the manner of Brâncuşi and Modigliani, Lobo also adopted the traditional method of sculpting directly into the block, carving the final form out of the stone. With his metal sculptures, he was equally methodical, working first from plaster casts which he would then translate into bronze. He would closely oversee the smelting day to day, selecting the patinas and personally polishing each cast, monitoring the production of the eight bronze version casts that he made of every sculpture, ensuring that each cast carried the artist's handprint.

With its sinuous curves, refined elongated form, and towering presence, L'Eveil sur socle epitomizes the most attractive qualities of twentieth-century sculpture in its exploration of the eternal feminine whilst looking back to the ancient Iberian influences. Conceived during the final years of his life, the present work is an outstanding example of Lobo's intensive and mature study of the female form that enabled him to develop an in-depth knowledge of human anatomy, its movements and gestures, its surface and sinews, translating them into a lyrical, near-abstract sculptural vocabulary of curvilinear shapes.

With her stretched torso, L'Éveil sur socle is a composite of smooth sensual curves and rippling contours accentuated by the rich black-green patina. For Lobo, the torso is not an unfinished anatomy, but an abbreviation that encloses the essence of humanity.