Constellation Three Graces (Constellation Trois Graces)
Beginning in 1917, Arp started creating reliefs in wood, working with a carpenter to cut amorphous shapes that the artist then assembled in layers. The artist began to use bronze late in his practice, having achieved a level of success that allowed him to pursue this more costly and time-consuming process. Arp derived his biomorphic inventiveness from observations of nature’s organic purity and growth processes. Referring to this work as l’art concret (or concrete art), Arp expressed a desire to create art as "concrete and sensual as a leaf or stone."[1]
[1] A.D.S. Donaldson and Ann Stephen. J.W. Power: Abstraction-Création, Paris 1934, Sydney: University Art Gallery, the University of Sydney, 2012, p. 106.
[1] A.D.S. Donaldson and Ann Stephen. J.W. Power: Abstraction-Création, Paris 1934, Sydney: University Art Gallery, the University of Sydney, 2012, p. 106.
Artwork Details
- Title: Constellation Three Graces (Constellation Trois Graces)
- Artist: Jean Arp (French (born Germany), Strasbourg 1886–1966 Basel)
- Date: 1955
- Medium: Bronze
- Dimensions: 10 × 13 × 1 3/16 in., 5.9 lb. (25.4 × 33 × 3 cm, 2.7 kg)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Gift of the Maria and Conrad Janis Estate, 2024
- Object Number: 2024.88.2
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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