BALTASAR LOBO (1910-1993)

Fusing the influences of Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp and Pablo Picasso, Baltasar Lobo’s Contemplative combines the artist’s preferred subject of the feminine archetype with the radical formal developments of early 20th Century modernism. Lobo's heavily stylised female figure is composed of rounded, organic, modular elements as she elegantly reclines to the side, lost in contemplation. As if caught within the joie de vivre of Matisse’s Luxe calme et volupté (1904, Musée d’Orsay), she elegantly poses, an icon of harmony and grace.

Lobo’s interest in the ancient arts - in particular the Cycladic sculpture that also inspired his predecessors – provide the heritage for Lobo’s smooth, polished contours that illuminate the surface, mirroring the rounded forms of Brancusi and Arp. The warm lustrous colour and sheen of the rich patina provides depth, bringing her figure to life in a dynamic ode to the reclining nude, recalling Renoir, Picasso and Matisse. A muse of her time and yet deeply rooted in the ancient, Lobo’s subject in Contemplative recalls the classical, voluptuous body of the historic nude with a modern sensibility.