Browse

Accession #	2008.1
Artist	Robert Laurent
Title	Plant Form
Date	ca. 1920-1923
Medium	Wood on separate wood base
Dimensions	Overall with base: 21 1/4 x 7 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. (54 x 18.4 x 18.4 cm)
Signed	Incised on rear corner of self base: "LAURENT"
Credit Line	Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Location	Visible Storage: Case 31, Shelf A (Sculpture)

Curatorial Remarks: In this hand-carved work, the French-born Brooklyn artist Robert Laurent formed three organic and erotic leaf forms that stretch upward with a turning or unfurling motion suggested by the complex interplay of their silhouettes. Throughout the 1920s artists often engaged living, natural forms as surrogates for the human body in works that celebrated physical presence as an antidote to modern, mechanized lives. Among his earliest freestanding sculptures (Laurent had previously carved frames and two-dimensional reliefs), this work is one of a small handful of plant and flame subjects by the artist.