Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000
18 Works from the Bachman Collection
Auction: June 4, 2018 1:00:00 PM EDT
1984-1985, incised with the artist's signature and dated '85, numbered 2/5, and with the Johnson Atelier stamp at lower edge. Bronze with white patina.
height: 42 in. (106.7cm)
width: 35 in. (88.9cm)
depth: 49 in. (124.5cm)
Provenance: Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, New York.
The Estate of Lee & Gilbert Bachman, Atlanta, Georgia & Boca Raton, Florida (acquired directly from the above in 1986).
EXHIBITED:
"George Segal: Bronze," Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, April - June, 2003, p. 75, no. 18 (another cast illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).
note:
This lot is accompanied by a photocopy of the bill of sale from Sidney Janis Gallery, New York.
George Segal is best known as a sculptor who worked in a variety of media, including plaster and bronze. It is the former with which his oeuvre is most commonly associated. Segal created partial torsos as well as full-length models, as in the present lot, and cast his sculptures from living models generally known to him. He said, "I usually make sculptures of people I know very well in situations that I've known them in. And if that involves a luncheonette counter, places in the house or other places where I go: gas stations, bus stations, streets, farm buildings, this must all have to do with my experience...As long as there has been a very alive emotional experience between me and the person, or between me and the object, or both, only then do I incorporate it into my own art"(Hunter & Hawthorne, ‘George Segal,’ p. 72). To make his plaster figures, Segal wrapped his models in bandages dipped in warm water in sections, removing the sections, then reassembling and rejoining each seam.
Segal's subjects are presented in a variety of settings: seated in chairs, as in the present work, lying in bed, engaged in everyday activities, in domestic interiors, and in outdoor environments. In their 1984 reference on the artist, authors Sam Hunter and Don Hawthorne note "Segal's human replicas are pieced together...from castings of friends and relations who have been patient enough to leave their impression in plaster. Immobilized in plaster and anesthetized, they exist finally as objects exist" (ibid, p. 40).