André Ramseyer (1914-2007) - Zonder titel

This abstract sculpture by the renowned Swiss artist André Ramseyer (1914-2007) was purchased directly from the artist around 1970 and is characteristic of his style, which was strongly influenced by Henry Moore's geometric abstraction. His work from this period focuses on the interaction between “full and empty,” with the circular hole in the sculpture a classic element of his language. Although many of his best-known works are cast in bronze, he also worked with stone varieties such as marble and alabaster. This particular piece appears to be made of a polished marble. The sculpture is numbered 1/1 and bears his characteristic monogram. Dimensions: 28 cm long, 18 cm high, and 12 cm deep. The last 3 photos are of similar works from the same period.

Provenance
Studio of the artist
Family of Vliet, Eindhoven (1971)

Important !!
The black solid base is NOT included due to its weight (>25 kg) unless the sculpture is collected.

André Ramseyer
For André Ramseyer, sculpting was a true vocation: “I could do nothing else. I obeyed an inner calling.” A calling he tried to answer, not without pain: “You strive for a goal that moves farther away the closer you get. The artist is always short of what he would like to achieve. It is a source of suffering and at the same time a source of inspiration,” he told Dominique Bosshard at the age of 90 (in the Neuchâtel Express, January 31, 2004).

After studying with Léon Perrin (1886-1978) in La Chaux-de-Fonds and taking lessons at the Free Academies of Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris, André Ramseyer treated the human body in a style that reflected his admiration for masters such as Rodin (1840-1917) and Maillol (1861-1944). The sculptor’s last figurative work is The Bather, which overlooks the pool in the middle of the formal garden in front of the Hôtel DuPeyrou in Neuchâtel. This was a major milestone in his career: firstly because it was his first large official commission, and secondly because the work provoked controversy. Ramseyer had to defend it against a group of opponents who clung to traditional art. It took five years before the work was unveiled, even though the original project by the sculptor dated back to 1948.

After his time in Ossip Zadkine’s studio (1890-1967), André Ramseyer gradually moved toward abstraction. The figures of the couples he sculpted became simplified, refined forms, with empty spaces between their bodies. He described his development as follows:

“The turning point came in 1948, after The Bather at the Hôtel DuPeyrou, when I stepped away from figurative art. After a year in Paris, I worked with the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Under his influence, I slowly developed into a freedom of form I had long desired.” Zadkine remained a figurative sculptor, but he allowed himself freedoms with the human body—freedoms I adopted, as in Comfort, a sculpture now on the central square in Biel/Bienne; it is still the male and female bodies, but treated with considerable freedom.”¹

When Ramseyer ventured into abstraction, this art form was met with harsh judgment by the public and by many artists as well, such as Charles L’Eplattenier (1874–1946), Léon Perrin (1886–1978) and Paulo Röthlisberger (1892–1990). Ramseyer recalls that the latter, during a stay in Paris, was tempted to paint non-figuratively but gave it up. “Facing a sculpture by Marino Marini, he even said to me: ‘This is nothing for us.’” As for Léon Perrin, he judged his former pupil’s work now as “childish, almost a ruin!”²

Ramseyer’s fellow painters, such as Georges Froidevaux and Claude Loewer, who had also embraced abstract art, encountered the same incomprehension: the public in Neuchâtel simply did not look at it. The Neuchâtel and Jura region, however, made a spectacular entry into the modern art era from the fifties; sculptor André Ramseyer was one of the first to dare leave figurative art and gave his explorations of the circle a personal dimension, even though his work echoed Jean Arp or Henry Moore (whom he discovered in 1950 at the Bern Art Museum).

These formal explorations became increasingly innovative, at the risk of wounding the sensitivities of the Neuchâtel public, which remained largely unreceptive to abstract art. Thus the Courrier de Genève wrote in 1960, after the unveiling of a sculpture on the facade of the Winterthur insurance building in Neuchâtel:

“For those who are interested—and we believe there are many—we would point out that the bronze motif on the facade of the building, created by the sculptor Ramseyer, bears the title Envol (Flight), which is good to know.”³ The sculptor wanted to integrate the work again into the architecture. Ramseyer explained this in the Feuille d’Avis de Neuchâtel:

“For this distinctly modern building the aim was to choose a simple motif, suitable for the outdoors, visible from afar and also for drivers, even those who passed by quickly.” I chose a play of curves that, in contrast, emphasized the verticals and horizontals of the building. It was necessary to create a rising rhythm, conforming to the great upward movement of the facade and the long rectangular wall to be decorated. I want to stress that this work—and I called it Flight—is nothing in itself. It is a sculptural element in which one must only see a game of shapes and rhythms. Contemporary architecture calls for contemporary sculpture.”⁴

Ramseyer created numerous monumental works and engaged in a dynamic dialogue with architecture. He was always keen to integrate himself into the spirit of the place, playing with space, light and the materials of those locations. According to Olivier Bauermeister, Ramseyer’s sculptures gradually “create the space they need, in an uninterrupted movement of beginning and end.”5

André Ramseyer found an original path by multiplying variations on the circle. For him, “the sphere is the most beautiful of all lines…” He also gave central importance to the “magic of emptiness” that inhabits and permeates the form. The polarities of the material and the immaterial thus come together. The artist liked to say that his works unfold in space, just as space penetrates them. He wished that they “radiate from within.” In his 1979 monograph on the artist, Marcel Joray wrote: “Forms born of the circle, symbol of the heavens, and from sections born of the square, symbol of the earth, multiply. The circle will become the central form of all Ramseyer sculptures, as they strive to reach the sign, the spiritualized matter.” The sculptor repeats this point (in L’Express, January 31, 2004): “In a work of art there is matter, space, light, all the skill one can put into it. But there must be an extra, essential dimension, which I would call spiritual. The work of art emits its own vibrations.”

The Cantata of Gates of Day series (1988-1990) holds a unique place in his oeuvre. Ramseyer repeatedly walked past the granite slabs his neighbor, a stonemason, had stored at his workshop. One day he felt compelled to have architectural forms carved from these slabs and to add subtle engravings, as a tribute to the material itself. This approach unsettled many, and even the artist himself struggled with it.

André Ramseyer spoke about his work several times, in interviews and lectures. He also wrote the texts for the second part of the monograph that Éditions du Griffon published in 1994.