Live Auction 10364Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale, London
Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003)
Lot 153

Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003)

Maquette IV Elektra

Closed26 June 2015

Price Realised

GBP 50,000

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Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003)
Maquette IV Elektra
signed, numbered and dated 'Chadwick 69 582 4/4' (on the back leg), stamped with the Morris Singer Foundry Mark (on the left leg) and stamped 'CHADWICK 69/582 4/4' (on the underside)
bronze with a dark brown and polished patina
31¾ in. (80 cm.) high

Specialist note

Lynn Chadwick began the Elektra series in 1969. These figures took on various poses: standing, seated and reclining and it was in this group that he first introduced the combination of highly polished surfaces with a matt patina. Not uncommon in Chadwick's work, the title is ambiguous. Immediately descriptive - Elektra is Greek for 'Shining Ones', however it also refers to the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, immortalised in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides.

Following Chadwick's Watchers series, Elektra feels more refined. The polished areas of face and torso accentuate the figure's femininity and the angled poses imbue the works with an attitude of strength and assuredness rather than one of foreboding and menace that one feels in the Watchers.