WOKING, UK – An important, monumental steel sculpture featuring what is believed to be the largest hand-worked glass enamel bowl ever made, commissioned by Christian Aid to draw attention to world poverty, is the highlight of a sale of contemporary art and design to be held at Ewbank’s on Feb. 19
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The work, titled Poverty Over, was unveiled at Southwark Cathedral in January 2011 by, after which it toured Britain’s cathedrals in a three-year journey to provoke debate about how Christians can meet the demands of their faith by challenging poverty around the world.
It was designed and created in 2010 by renowned architectural glass artist Mel Howse, who lives and works from studios in Chichester.
The sculpture’s message is in the juxtaposition of two huge spun steel vessels, the glass enameled interiors of which represent inverted human eyes. The surreal and evocative piece draws the viewer in with its elevated and conspicuous eye representing society’s conscious. As the viewer approaches, the second eye, the eye of poverty, looks up from the deep interior of the lower bowl.
Howse, who was present at the unveiling, said the work was intended to explore the gap between people who are living in poverty and those who are not. “The juxtaposition of the two vessels implies that one vessel brings attention to the other. In essence they are the same. Poverty is staring at us and can be uncomfortable to witness. But once we have seen, the challenge is to act,” she said.
Howse is an experimental glass artist who pushes the boundaries within her commissions.
The larger of the two bowls in Poverty Over has a diameter of approximately four feet and and is two feet deep, which is believed to be the largest of its kind ever made. The sculpture has a height of 220cms (7 feet) and is estimated to sell for £5,000-£8,000. Ewbank’s will waive its usual commission to further benefit Christian Aid.
One of the most valuable pieces in the sale is an an abstract composition by Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1966) an Aboriginal artist who became one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary indigenous Australian art.
Kame Kngwarreye was born in Utopia, a remote desert area 150 miles north-east of Alice Springs, Australia. For virtually two-thirds of her life she had only sporadic contact with the outside world and it was not until she reached the age of about 80 that she started to paint.
However, she became an artist of national and international standing almost overnight, producing more than 3,000 paintings in the course of her eight-year career, an average of one per day. Her art was inspired by her cultural life as an Anmatyerre elder, and her lifelong custodianship of the women’s Dreaming sites in her clan Country, Alhalkere.
The painting in Ewbank’s sale was purchased from the Barry Stern Gallery in Padington, New South Wales, 1996, and has been consigned by the executors of the owner’s estate. Done in synthetic polymer paint on canvas, it is signed on the reverse, it measures 120cms by 88cms and is estimated at £15,000-£25,000.
The American artist Guy Carleton Wiggins (1883-1962) is represented by an oil on board showing a presently highly appropriate scene set in New York titled Snow Storm in the City, which is estimated at £10,000-£15,000.
Wiggins was born in Brooklyn. He was trained by his father, also an accomplished artist, and became famous for his paintings of his city’s skyscrapers and streets, set invariably during the winter.
The present painting measures 8.6 by 11.4 inches and was purchased by its owner at an auction in Denmark.
Among the more affordable highlights in the contemporary section of the sale is Narcissus a work in mixed media, signed and dated ’47 by the British-born Basil Ivan Rakoczi (1908-1979), which is one of a small series based on characters from Greek myths. The painting was sold by Rakoczi in 1949 to a collector in Nottingham and will be added to the artist’s catalogue raisonné by Rakoczi’s grandson. It is estimated at £1,200-£1,800.
Other highlights include a pastel and chalk drawing of a reclining woman by Leon Underwood (British, 1890-1975) signed and dated ’30, 14 1/2 by 18 inches, estimate £1,000-£1,500; Jessie, a portrait in colored chalk on gray paper by Paul Lucien Maze (French, 1887-1979) 25 by 15 inches, estimate £400-£600; and an oil on canvas of a seated nude in a studio by Dod Procter (1892-1972) 20 by 16 inches, estimate £800-£1,200.
Of particular note among a number contemporary bronzes is Cosmic Rhinoceros by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali (1904-1989) number 307 of a limited edition of 350. It is estimated at £600-£1,000, while a study of a crouching figure on a polished granite base, signed in the bronze by Mexican sculptor Francisco Zuniga (1912-1998), and titled Jose Jesus is estimated at £1,000-£1,500.
In the Decorative Arts and Design section of the sale, a fine Art Deco silvered bronze figural lamp by the German designer craftsman Oscar Bach (1884-1957) is estimated at £800-£1,200.
The lamp is modeled as four nude men supporting a circular dish and is stamped with Bach’s signature and a foundry mark. It stands 51.5cm tall including the glass shade.
German American Bach started his career in Germany, one of his early designs, a prayer book for Pope Pius, being in the Vatican Collection. He won the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Turin in 1911 and from then until his death, he lived and worked in New York. He exhibited regularly at the Metropolitan Museum of Industrial Art and his work can be seen in the Empire State building, the Rockefeller Center and he Chrysler Building. The caryatid figures that form the lamp base stem from the design for a pair of monumental bronze lanterns designed for the New York Department of Health building in 1932.
Among 17 lots of Lalique glass already consigned to the sale, mostly perfume bottles, is a Druide vase with green staining, decorated in high relief with mistletoe. Designed in 1924 and etched with the unmistakable “R Lalique France” factory mark, the globular-shaped vase is estimated at £1,200-£1,500.
An Art Deco bronze of a dancing girl by the Austrian sculptor and ceramic artist Josef Lorenzl (1892-1950) the silvered bronze nude figure standing on a green onyx base is estimated at £1,500-£1,800.
Among English ceramics are around 50 lots of Moorcroft pottery, the most interesting among which is a commemorative mug made for the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, decorated with a personal inscription from Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder of the famous London department store. Decorated with green and blue glazes and dated 1902, the mug’s base is inscribed “Mr. & Mrs. Lasenby Liberty, The Lee, Bucks” and initialed “WM” for William Morris, the artist potter. The mug is estimated at £150-£250 and will be sold with a copy of Spring-time in the Basque Mountains, a travelogue by Liberty, illustrated by his wife, Emma Louise, and inscribed by the author.
In the modern design section of the sale, not one but eight sets of silver year spoons by Danish silversmith Anton Michelson (1809-1877) are together estimated at £300-£500.
A pair of terra-cotta garden urns are from the Compton Pottery, founded in the Surrey village at the end of the 19th century by Mary Seton Watts (1849-1938), wife of the Victorian painter George Frederic Watts (1817-1904). The pair is estimated at £1,000-£1,500, as is a group of two totem vases and two bowls; a cylindrical Rochetto vase; a Calice vase with a waisted shape and two Diablo bowls, each hand signed, “E Sottsass, Bitossi Montelupo.” Ettore Sottass (1917-2007) was an Italian architect and designer, while Bitossi are porcelain manufactures based in Florence.
A stylish Art Deco five-piece bedroom suite in bird’s-eye maple with rosewood inlay from the same period is estimated at £500-£800. It composed of a gentleman’s cabinet with line of drawers and fitted cabinet, a dressing table with matching stool with leather top, a single door wardrobe and a bed end.
For further information, please contact Ewbank’s specialist Andrea Machen, telephone 01483 223101.
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