Bronzefrau Nr. 11 from 2002 belongs to Thomas Schütte’s highly acclaimed Frauen (Women), a landmark series which delivers a pioneering recapitulation of both the traditional medium of bronze and female statuary. First conceived in three unique material forms comprising bronze (as in the present work), cor-ten steel (Museum Folkwang, Essen) and aluminium (the artist's collects ion), the present work forms an early, elegant iteration from a series arguably considered the artist's finest and most ambitious. Echoing the calming child's pose in yoga, this sinuous and serpentine body exudes a sense of supple fleshiness. An accented spinal ridge belongs to a humanoid form that is both fragmentary and abstracted, imparting a distinct sense of the Uncanny in the viewer who recognises feminine attributes that are abstracted and made strange, a body which appears to mutate and transform before our eyes. Displayed and presented upon the slab of cor-ten steel, we are keenly reminded of a workbench, operating table or mortuary slab as much as we are the traditional pedestal or plinths of grand works of sculpture. Combining the elegance and fluidity of bronze with the industrial warmth of oxidised steel, the grace of an eighteenth-century reclining nude with the post-modern trope of fragmentation, the present work, and the wider cycle to which it belongs, announce the brilliance of an artist considered among the most influential sculptors working today.

Cast in bronze, the dark patinated surface of the present work carries a lyrical air, clearly originating in the classicist figures of the early twentieth century. One of the most abstract in form from the 18 work in this series, the headless torso of Bronzefrau Nr. 11 folds over onto its kneeling legs as spinal vertebrae protrude from its back, evoking a strange metamorphic animal or an extraterrestrial creature. Sinking into itself against the sober steel workbenches turned into plinths, the mythical creature is monumental yet vulnerable, presented as an idol raised on the podium but also as a captive victim exposed to merciless scrutiny. Looking at the figures of Goya’s Black Paintings, portrait sculptures by Daumier and grotesque tales of Wilhelm Busch, there is a dark and fantastical aura to the woman of Bronzefrau Nr. 11. Systematically titled by its medium and numbered, the women of the series are unnamed, speaking directly as a work of sculpture without allegorical or commemorative associations traditionally present in bronze, outdoor figurative sculpture. Rather, Schütte’s Frauen pushes the limits of the human form, pursuing a longstanding exploration of the female figure as a site of transformation.

The forms of the Frauen were selected from small ceramic maquettes which Schütte made between 1997 and 1999. Each ceramic maquette was created from a single piece of clay and executed as sculptural sketches in rapid and spontaneous gestures. Schütte methodically created five different clay maquettes every day, which were then either coated in glaze and fired or destroyed. By 1999 there were 120 fired clay maquettes, from which these the artist selected a handful of prototypes for the larger Frauen. The process of enlarging the prototype began in a foundry in the dockland of Düsseldorf where a larger-than-life, polyester replica of the selected maquette was created. In this process of enlarging, the rawness of the initial clay was transformed into a refined, succinct form in which all surfaces of the figure – from the curvature of its heel to the depth of folding flesh – are exposed to prolonged labored consideration.

Imbued with the monumental presence and physicality of the traditional sculptural subject of the female nude, Schütte's Bronzefrau “make an overt claim to be part of the history of sculpture. They assert their position within other people's lineages" and are instilled with a statuesque grandeur that is at once humble and emphatic (Penelope Curtis, “Reclining Sculpture,” in Exh, Cat., Reina Sofia, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte, Thomas Schütte: Hindsight, 2009, p. 64). Translating an emblem of classical iconography into a totem for our contemporary era, Schütte has created a transcendental entities that stand as monumental eulogies to the human figure and female form.