Stephan Balkenhol (b. 1957)
Frauenbüste Mit Banane (Woman Bust with Banana)
acrylic on cedar wood with artist's plinth
sculpture: 27½ x 17¾ x 7 ⅞in. (70 x 45 x 20cm.)
plinth: 17¾ x 28½ x 16½in. (45 x 72.5 x 42cm.)
Executed in 1995

Provenance:
Lindig in Paludetto, Turin.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1999.

λ Please see our Conditions of Sale for definitions of cataloguing symbols.

Specialist Notes:

The hand-carved sculpture of Stephan Balkenhol is recognised not only for the technical prowess with which he conceives each of his figures, but also for his continual devotion to exploring the role of the figure within contemporary art. Known to refer to his type of individuals as ‘Everyman’, he imbues his figures with a timelessness that in some ways recalls the grandeur of Graeco-Roman sculpture. But as the present work perfectly evidences, there is an irreverence to Balkenhol’s work, as he presents a classical three-quarter bust of a woman, hovering between anonymity and likeness, gazing out into the far distance, with a banana on her head.

Executed in 1995, the same year as his large solo exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Frauenbüste Mit Banane (Woman Bust with Banana) encapsulates Balkenhol’s interrogation of the sculptural tradition. Indeed Hirshhorn curator Neal Benezra noted in the exhibition catalogue that ‘Balkenhol’s ability to straddle a line between human activity observed on the street and the expressionism of traditional figurative sculpture has yielded some of his best and most interesting work… if Balkenhol has retrieved the common man, woman, and animal from the scrap heap of art history for sculpture in the 1990s, he has done so with uncommon wit and humour’ (N. Benezra, Stephan Balkenhol, exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 1995, pp. 29-30).

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.