Lynn Chadwick R.A. (British, 1914-2003)


Maquette I Sitting Couple on Bench numbered and dated 'C10S./8/9.1985' (on the underside of the female figure); further numbered and dated again 'C10S.8/9.1985.' (on the underside of the male figure); and numbered and dated again 'C10S.8/9.1985.' (on the underside of the bench)bronze with a black patina and polished faces seated on a bronze bench (in three parts)40.7 cm. (16 in.) wideConceived in 1984 and cast in 1987
|ProvenanceThe family of the ArtistExhibitedLondon, Marlborough Fine Art, Chadwick: Recent Sculpture, 31 October-7 December 1984 (another cast, ill.)LiteratureDennis Farr & Éva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick, Sculptor, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2014, p.350, cat.no.C10SWhen thinking about partnerships reproduced in bronze and where Henry Moore is renowned for his lifelong celebration of mother and child, it must be said that Lynn Chadwick focussed his attention on the male and female romantic couple.Throughout his career, he conceived of them in a multitude of forms, finishes and poses. Beginning in the 1950s, they were youthful 'Dancing figures' and 'Teddy boys and girls' who gave way to the 'Watchers' of the 60s. Somethimes they were 'conjoined' or bound together with wings and cloaks and sometimes they were placed apart, a couple still but independent from one another. Nearly always, however, they were standing. It was not until the 1970s that Chadwick's couples began to rest and could be found sunk to the floor, sitting or reclining. Occasionally at this point they were positioned on what the artist himself termed 'bases', solid square shapes that funtioned more as platforms for presentation than genuine seats. A decade later, in the 1980s, Chadwick first introduced the concept of a realistic bench to his couples and the monumental Couple on Seat (1984, Ibaragi Museum of Art, Japan), show the pair sitting quietly on a simple and instantly familiar bench. In juxtaposing his typically esoteric figures with such an everyday object, the artist succeeds in making the whole more naturalistic, more real. Suddenly, these otherworldly people with no facial features and geometric heads become an actual couple, they could be you or I pausing on a park stroll with our partner.The present work is a wonderfully tender example of this. Here, the male and female are positioned side by side, elevated from the ground on their humble bench. This couple is far more naturalistic than later examples such as Back to Venice (1988, Collection of the British Council), their cloaks pool around them and the swelling of the female's belly and intimate angles of their legs leaning toward each other reinforces the powerfully human subject. Offered with unbroken provenance from the artist himself, the figures in the present lot are separate to each other and also from their seat and therefore can be nestled closer or afforded greater space, as the viewer chooses.We are grateful to the Artist's Estate for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.