Gyula Halász, known as Brassaï (1899 - 1984) - Lot 222

Gyula Halász, known as Brassaï (1899 - 1984) White Venus II 1971 Marble torso Carries the artist's monogram "B" engraved on the left thigh H. 22 cm, on a black marble base H.6,3 cm Work not fixed on its base, small restoration to the front right corner of the base Related literature Alain Sayag, Brassaï, cat. exp. Paris, Musée national d'art moderne, April 19-June 25, 2000, Verona (Italy), L'oeuvre photographique", Edition le Seuil, 2000 Brassaï, D. H. Kahnweiler, Les Sculptures de Picasso, Paris, Les éditions du Chêne, 1949 Galerie Verrière, Brassaï - Sculptures, Tapisseries, Dessins, preface/text by Gaston Diehl, cat. exp, Paris, Galerie Verrière, March 22-April 24, 1972 Jean de Loisy, Formes simples, cat. exhibition, Metz, Centre-Pompidou Metz, June 13 - November 5, 2014, Metz, Ed. du Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2014, p.182-184, p.187, p.200-202 ; Prehistory: a modern enigma, cat. exp. Paris, Musée national d'art moderne, May 8 - September 16 septembre 2019, Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2019, p. 100. Être pierre, cat. exp. exhibition, Paris, Musée Zadkine, September 29, 2017-February 11, 2018,, Paris, Edition Paris Musées, 2017, p. 111 ; Page 1 of 3 A certificate of authenticity drawn up by Philippe Ribeyrolles on behalf of the Estate Brassaï Succession dated October 13, 2025. This statuette in polished marble, with its simple, full forms, belongs to the rare and still confi corpus of Brassai's sculptural works. Although world-renowned as a photographer, Brassaï, pseudonym of Gyula Halász versatile artist. Sculpture is a medium that has attracted him throughout his career. his career. He first studied it at the Budapest School of Fine Arts, before turning his attention to the creative gesture. before taking an interest in the creative gestures of a number of his French acquaintances, including Albert Giacometti and, above all, Pablo Picasso. In 1943, Picasso asked him to photograph his sculptures, a task to which he devoted almost three years. A deep friendship reunited them, and Brassaï in the Boisgeloup studio for the magazine Minotaure, and later for the first the first book on his then little-known sculptural work, which contained the text by D.-H. Kahnweiler. By the end of the 1930s, Brassaï had gained international recognition for his photogra- phies. Brassaï rejected any notion of specialization. He indulged in a wide range of artistic- tic practices. His favorite themes are transposed from one medium to another - drawings, sculptures, tapestries - which interact and respond to each other. Brassaï began sculpting in the 1950s, and more regularly in the in the 1960s and 1970s. In a text published on the occasion of the 1972 exhibition of his sculptural works at the Galerie Verrière, directed at the time by Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor, the artist indicates the path he followed which led him to transform pebbles collected, first from the Adour river in the Pyrenees, then Mediterranean coast. The simple, random shapes of these hand-held stones and the long process of shaping them give her the emotion and sensuality of the primary, instinctive gesture of touch. instinctive gesture of touch. They evoke the first works of mankind, the first maternal deities such as the Venus of Lespugue or Cycladic idols. For him, as for a number for him, as for a number of avant-garde artists, the mineral once again becomes a field of exploration both dreamlike and tangible. both dreamlike and tangible. The representation of the body in its most essential, synthetic form abstraction gives rise to an expression "quivering with life". This is how he explains his creative process: "The sea is a wonderful sculptor. I had this revela- I had this revelation on a shore in the Pyrenees, just a quarter of a century ago. Struck by the beauty of the pebbles the beauty of pebbles, I carved my first sculptures from stones I picked up on the shore. When eroded and polished by the incessant to-and-fro of the waves, the pebbles emerge from the gigantic from the gigantic tidal power plant, they are sculptures carved as if by a sensual hand. sensual hand. Part of a primordial vocabulary of lapidary art, they are loaded with potentialities, and can suggest a face, a head, a body. suggest a face, a head, a bird, a fish, a human body, depending on the imagination imagination or obsession. Recognition is sometimes immediate, sometimes takes years until a pebble speaks to you and reveals its identity. The "model" is never external. it lies in the stone itself. And you never have the sensation of inventing or creating, but simply of delivering... I'm convinced that art was born not from forms invented from scratch, but from those to which the imagination could give meaning. I have undoubtedly had to obey similar injunctions." A photo