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Lot Essay
During the First World War, Fergusson was at the heart of an elite group of artists and writers based in London, including Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. In 1918, Fergusson’s sculptures were exhibited as part of a solo show at The Connell Gallery, receiving critical acclaim, subsequently increasing his profile as both painter and sculptor.
Charles Marriot wrote, ‘the most striking temperamental characteristic expressed in the work of Mr Fergusson is his craving for the third dimension. Obviously he is a man of robust imagination, ill content with a vision that evades the logic of sculpture. But being a true painter he will not sacrifice the tools and materials of his craft to realistic imitation in order to get an effect of solidity. By reducing everything to the same category, and dealing with it in the same terms, he is able to combine ideas of sculpture and emotional suggestions in a pictorial and decorative manner: to embody thoughts and feelings ‘in the round’. As might be expected of such a painter, he has more than an instinct for sculpture’ (C. Marriott, Building in Paint, Land and Water, 16 May 1918, p. 20.)
Standing Nude demonstrates both Fergusson’s interest in female fertility and sexuality, seen in the figure’s pointed breasts and exaggerated buttocks, and his ability to combine both painting and sculpture; tightly controlling the form within a rigid overall scheme of contours and planes. The sculpture also highlights Fergusson's time in pre-war Paris and the radical changes in art taking place at the time. The present work bears relation to pre-war Cubist sculpture such as Archipenko’s Women Combing Her Hair, 1915, and Gaudier-Brzeska’s Torpedo Fish and Brass Toy, both of 1914.
Charles Marriot wrote, ‘the most striking temperamental characteristic expressed in the work of Mr Fergusson is his craving for the third dimension. Obviously he is a man of robust imagination, ill content with a vision that evades the logic of sculpture. But being a true painter he will not sacrifice the tools and materials of his craft to realistic imitation in order to get an effect of solidity. By reducing everything to the same category, and dealing with it in the same terms, he is able to combine ideas of sculpture and emotional suggestions in a pictorial and decorative manner: to embody thoughts and feelings ‘in the round’. As might be expected of such a painter, he has more than an instinct for sculpture’ (C. Marriott, Building in Paint, Land and Water, 16 May 1918, p. 20.)
Standing Nude demonstrates both Fergusson’s interest in female fertility and sexuality, seen in the figure’s pointed breasts and exaggerated buttocks, and his ability to combine both painting and sculpture; tightly controlling the form within a rigid overall scheme of contours and planes. The sculpture also highlights Fergusson's time in pre-war Paris and the radical changes in art taking place at the time. The present work bears relation to pre-war Cubist sculpture such as Archipenko’s Women Combing Her Hair, 1915, and Gaudier-Brzeska’s Torpedo Fish and Brass Toy, both of 1914.