Images(7)

Les Trois Belles

Artist Ossip Zadkine (Smolensk, Russia, 1890 - 1967)

Date1950

Mediumbrass

ClassificationsSculptures

DimensionsOverall: Height: 78.5 cm, Width: 34.5 cm, Depth: 18 cm
Plinth Size: Height: 92.4 cm, Width: 55.8 cm, Depth: 39.5 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1953 with income from the Macdonald Bequest.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG004748

Keywords

Nude

About Me'Les Trois Belles', produced forty years after the advent of Cubism, betrays Zadkine's lasting debt to Cubist stylisation and the representation of several views of the object simultaneously.

The 'Three Graces' has long been a popular subject with artists. In classical times the three women, two facing the spectator and one in the middle facing away, were regarded as the personification of grace and beauty and as the handmaidens of Venus. In later times they have been interpreted as symbols of generosity or love.

As a material for sculpture brass has the advantage over bronze in that it can be worked with carving tools after it has been cast. Incised profiles and generalised facial features play against the roundness of the female forms. Zadkine said. 'I choose to work in a different material much as a man may suddenly feel an appetite for a change of diet'.