EMILIO GRECO | GRANDE DONNA SEDUTA II

Dominion Gallery, Montreal

Private Collection, Toronto

Sotheby's, New York, 11 November 1992 Lot, 266

Emilio Arditti, Paris (acquired at the above sale) 

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Josef Paul Hodin, Emilio Greco, Sculpture and Drawings, Somerset 1971, no. 110, illustration of another cast p. 57 

A pioneer of figural sculpture in the post-war era, Emilio Greco was deeply influenced by the rich artistic heritage of his native Italy. Apprenticed to a stone mason at the age of thirteen, Greco began his career carving reliefs and inscriptions for funerary monuments. The Etruscan, Greek and Roman sculpture found in Sicily’s archaeological museums served as the basis for Greco’s first sensual nudes and charismatic busts. His best-known figures feature elongated limbs and refined poses, further honoring the Italian Mannerist tradition of artists like Jacopo da Pontormo and Tintoretto. Steeped in Italian artistic tradition yet entirely modern in feel, Greco’s sculptures spurned the trend toward abstraction and forged a new path toward a modern post-war Italy.