Footnotes

Provenance
With Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1993, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.S.A.

Literature
Dennis Farr & Éva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick Sculptor, With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-2005, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2014, p.350, cat.no.C9S (ill.b&w, another cast)

When thinking about partnerships reproduced in bronze and where Henry Moore is renowned for his lifelong celebration of mother and child, it must be said that Lynn Chadwick focused his attention on the male and female romantic couple.

Throughout his career, he conceived of them in a multitude of forms, finishes and poses. Beginning in the 1950s, they were youthful 'Dancing figures' and 'Teddy boys and girls' who gave way to the 'Watchers' of the 60s. Sometimes they were 'conjoined' or bound together with wings and cloaks and sometimes they were placed apart, a couple still but independent from one another. Nearly always, however, they were standing. It was not until the 1970s that Chadwick's couples began to rest and could be found sunk to the floor, sitting or reclining. Occasionally at this point they were positioned on what the artist himself termed 'bases', solid square shapes that functioned more as platforms for presentation than genuine seats. A decade later, in the 1980s, Chadwick first introduced the concept of a realistic bench to his couples and the monumental Couple on Seat (1984, Ibaragi Museum of Art, Japan), show the pair sitting quietly on a simple and instantly familiar bench. In juxtaposing his typically esoteric figures with such an everyday object, the artist succeeds in making the whole more naturalistic, more real. Suddenly, these otherworldly people with no facial features and geometric heads become an actual couple, they could be you or I pausing on a park stroll with our partner.

The present work is a wonderfully tender example of this. Here, the male and female are positioned side by side, elevated from the ground on their humble bench. This couple is far more naturalistic than later examples such as Back to Venice (1988, Collection of the British Council), their cloaks pool around them and the swelling of the female's belly and intimate angles of their leaning legs reinforces the powerfully human subject. The figures in the present lot are separate to each other and also from their seat and therefore can be nestled closer or afforded greater space, as the viewer chooses.

We are grateful to the Artist's Estate for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.