Horst Egon KALINOWSKI (1924-2013) - Lot 108

Horst Egon KALINOWSKI (1924-2013) Caisse Gopura (Temple Entrance), 1962 Sculpture, assemblage of various salvaged wood and metal elements on a leather-covered wooden core, signed, titled, dated Thursday, March 8, 1962, located in Paris and numbered 476 on the back. Scratches and minor wear. 273 x 100 x 20 cm PROVENANCE: Daniel Cordier collection, Paris. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Franz Joseph van de Grinten & Vera Bachmann, op. cit. work described with numerous references to publications and exhibitions, reproduced on page 157. Collective, Horst Egon Kalinowski, Caissons et stèles 1961-1969, Paris, Centre National d'Art Contemporain, 1969 (catalog of the eponymous exhibition), reproduced (unpaginated). Horst Egon KALINOWSKI (1924-2013), born in Düsseldorf in 1924, came to Paris in 1950 and continued his training at La Grande Chaumière, in Jean Dewasne's abstract art studio. A genius at collage, with a rigorous selection of materials and an extremely meticulous technique, Kalinowski first excelled in works on paper. Daniel Cordier, who exhibited his work in his gallery from 1958, was his greatest supporter. The Tableaux-objets, "Bildschreine" or Tableaux-châsses, the culmination of his early work, take shape by completely invading the canvas surface with extra-pictorial materials. The caissons or crates extend this approach into the field of sculpture, often monumental, where the voluptuousness of the materials - leather being the preferred material - achieves a strange balance between the sacred and the profane. This approach is justified by the artist's desire for "something much more tactile... a material that can be the vehicle of my emotions". This champion of misappropriation, using the most trivial of salvaged objects, is a marvellous artist with a fascinating sensuality, often hiding behind the apparent static serenity of his poem-objects a more underlying evocation of dreamlike symbolism and disconcerting magic.