Offered by Galerie Latham
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The contemporary sculpture that I am offering you is a beautiful pink marble (h.35 cm) with very biomorphic abstract lines, admirably polished by the Vaudois sculptor André Tommasini (1931 - 2011)
"Abstract 65" is a harmonious sculpture carved in an astonishing Portuguese marble of a powerful pink, very uniform, without veins, which one cannot resist caressing so much does it evoke the flesh. Some works from this period are part of a series that the artist called his "feminine landscapes". Heir to a funeral marble company, André Tommasini continued the family business while devoting himself to contemporary abstract sculpture, in different formats, sometimes monumental. He devoted his entire life to direct carving sculpture. The artist's words on his work perfectly inform us about his artistic intentions and his way of considering the art of sculpting: "It is the result - he writes - of an inner research on the subject of form that led me to these extremely polished, finished works. The sculpture that I practice does not allow any sagging of the form, anywhere. The inner tension must reach a point of balance with which it is impossible to cheat. The light must circulate gently, without aggression, around the forms, on the volumes, it must never be abruptly stopped. They say that my sculptures are feminine, sensual. That’s true, but I would first like them to be the rigor of sensuality. True fullness in my eyes is fullness made of restraint. I eliminate the accidents of the material, the superfluous, the seductive. It’s the only way to achieve the tension of the forms. That’s why I pushed the technique very far, I don’t want there to be anything picturesque in the execution. No easy hanging, no glance, nothing, everything must be stripped down. The polished and repolished form reveals itself little by little in its nudity, its greater density. I also like the restraint of the form that concentrates its inner force before it explodes. The visible volume engenders the invisible form.
His sculptural style is that of an instinctive and gentle alliance between the organic and the geometric. Some of his works are reminiscent of Hans Arp or even the surrealist period of Alberto Giacometti. Familiar with the dialogue with architecture, he was at ease in the monumental vocabulary of his time, in a certain affinity of thought with his colleagues André Rouiller or Henri Presset, who handled metal or bronze. Tommasini's language is more sensual. A first major retrospective of his work took place at the Gianadda Foundation in Martigny in 1997, which was aptly entitled "La volupté faite marbre"...
In 2023, the MCBA in Lausanne received a donation of a set of 34 sculptures, drawings and models by André Tommasini, following the death of his wife Suzanne Tommasini-Wyssbrod in 2022. The museum already owned several sculptures by this artist, of which we can see many monumental public commissions, in marble, stone - and sometimes even in Corten steel - mainly in the canton of Vaud
I therefore encourage you to come and caress without delay some of these objects and sculptures which "call" the hand - it is possible in my gallery when it is illicit in a museum - because, as you know, I love above all beautiful materials, when they are transformed "by the hands of masters".
