André
MASSON

(1896 - 1987)

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FEMME SERVANT DE TABLE, 1942 / 1986-1987

Bronze.
65.30 x 43.80 cm

Model designed in 1942 and cast in 1986.
Casting Brustolin, Verona, 1986-1987.
Publisher: Due Ci Gallery, Rome.
Third edition of 11 proofs, this one numbered 0/8 (copy reserved for the artist).

Bibliography :
Roger Passeron, André Masson, general catalog of sculptures, Il Quadrante Edizioni, Turin, 1987, model reproduced under n°11 and commented on p. 99 to 104.
André Masson, master works, Galerie H. Odermatt - Ph. Cazeau, Paris, December 1990 - February 1991, reproduced in the exhibition catalog under n°73, p.163.

History according to Roger Passeron:
"This sculpture-one of the most important of André Masson's second surrealist period-was made in plaster in New Preston, Connecticut, in 1942. "It is a reminiscence of a text by the Marquis de Sade about a nocturnal country party where all the furnishings of the place were women" (André Masson, April 1987). Its title and morphology place it in the continuation of the themes representing anthropomorphic furniture that the artist worked in Lyons-la-Forêt on his return from Spain and continued in America. Among the many projects of sculpture of anthropomorphic furniture it is the only one that the artist decided to realize. In 1966, while the Louise Leiris Gallery was still editing the first bronze print, a friend of André Masson's, the Swiss sculptor Hansjörg Gisigern, with the artist's permission, made an enlargement of this sculpture in plaster with his students. The Louise Leiris gallery had a single bronze copy made in 1967. In 1986, a new enlarged print, smaller than the previous one, was made by the Due Ci gallery, again with the agreement of André Masson who went to Rome to check the plaster. (...) The original 1942 plaster is kept by the Louise Leiris Gallery (...).

Roger Passeron, André Masson, general catalog of sculptures, Il Quadrante Edizioni, Turin, 1987, p.99.