Lot 276
£5,796
Auction: 28 October 2022 from 10:00 BST
signed and dated (to underside), polished marble
Provenance:
World House Galleries, New York, 1962;
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, New York, 1962-1966;
Gift to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington;
Christie's, Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 23 February 1994, lot 90 where sold by the Order of the Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum.
Émile Gilioli was one of the pre-eminent sculptors of the new abstract movement in France in the 1950s. He believed that the foremost challenge in sculpture was the synthesis of architecture and art, and that the choice of material, whether it be marble, onyx, bronze, lapis-lazuli, agate, alabaster or cement, was of utmost importance in shaping the form of the object.
Having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in the 1930s, the influences of the pre-war Paris school of artists such as Brancusi and Henri Laurens clearly shine through in his work. After World War Two he associated and exhibited with leading avant-garde artists of the period including Giacometti, Picasso and Soulages. This included being Vice-President of the leading abstract collective, Espace, initiated by André Bloch, Le Corbusier and Fernand Léger.
Gilioli went on to exhibit internationally and his work is held at major institutions such as Tate, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo. Gilioli was honoured with a retrospective after his death at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1979.