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 the geometric abstraction of Henry Moore. His work from this period focuses on the interaction between “full and empty,” with the circular hole in the sculpture serving as 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 distinctive monogram. The dimensions are 28 cm long, 18 cm high, and 12 cm deep. The last 3 photos are of comparable 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 statue is collected.

André Ramseyer
For André Ramseyer, sculpting was a true vocation: “I could do nothing else. I answered a inner calling.” A calling he tried to answer, not without pain: “You strive for a goal that moves further away the closer you get. The artist always falls 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, 31 January 2004).

After studying with Léon Perrin (1886-1978) in La Chaux-de-Fonds and taking classes 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 artist’s last figurative work is The Bathing Woman, looking out over the pool in the middle of the formal garden for the Hôtel DuPeyrou in Neuchâtel. This was a major milestone in his career: first, because it was his first large official commission, and second, because the work provoked controversy. André Ramseyer had to defend it against a group of opponents who clung to traditional art. It took five years before the work was unveiled, although 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 were given simplified, refined forms, with empty spaces between their bodies. He explained his development as follows:

“It was in 1948, after The Bathing Woman at the Hôtel DuPeyrou, that I distanced myself from figurative art. After spending a year in Paris, I worked with the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Under his influence I slowly developed a form of freedom I had longed for.” Zadkine remains a figurative sculptor, but he takes liberties with the human body, liberties I have adopted, as in Comfort, a sculpture now on the central square in Biel/Bienne; it is still the male and female body, but treated with great freedom.”¹

When André Ramseyer ventured into abstraction, this art form was judged very harshly by the general public and even by many artists, 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. “Standing in front of 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 turned to abstract art, encountered the same incomprehension: the public in Neuchâtel simply did not look at it. The pace could not keep up, yet the Neuchâtel and Jura regions made a spectacular entry into the modern art era from the 1950s; 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 (which he discovered in 1950 at the Bern Art Museum).

These formal explorations became increasingly innovative, risking further offending the sensitivities of the Neuchâtel public, still largely unreceptive to abstract art. Thus the Courrier de Genève wrote in 1960, after the unveiling of a sculpture on the façade of the Winterthur insurance building in Neuchâtel:

“For those who are interested—and we believe there are many—we want to point out that the bronze motif on the façade of the building, created by 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 decidedly modern building the aim was to choose a simple motif, suitable for the outdoors, visible from far away and also for motorists, even for those who pass quickly by.” I chose a pattern of curves that, in contrast, emphasized the verticals and horizontals of the building. It was necessary to create a rising rhythm, obeying the great upward movement of the façade and the long rectangular wall to be decorated. I want to emphasize that this work—which I called Flight—does not stand for anything. It is a sculptural element in which one should see only a play of forms and rhythms. Contemporary architecture calls for contemporary sculpture.”⁴

André Ramseyer created numerous monumental works and entered into 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 sites. According to Olivier Bauermeister, Ramseyer’s sculptures “gradually generate the space they need, in a continuous movement from beginning to 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 prominence to the “magic of emptiness” that inhabits and pervades the form. The opposite extremes of the material and the immaterial thus come together. The artist often said that his works unfold in space, just as space pervades them. He wanted them to “radiate from within.” In his 1979 monograph on the artist, Marcel Joray writes: “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, which strive to reach the sign, the spiritualized matter.” The sculptor repeats this point (in L’Express, 31 January 2004): “In a work of art there is matter, space, light, all the skill one can invest in it. But there must be an extra, essential dimension, which I would call spiritual. The artwork emits its own vibrations.”

The Cantata of Gates of Day series (1988-1990) occupies a unique place within his oeuvre. André Ramseyer repeatedly walked along 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 add subtle engravings as a tribute to the material itself. This approach unsettled many, and even the artist himself had difficulty with it.

André Ramseyer has spoken many times about his work, in interviews and lectures. He also wrote the texts for the second part of the monograph published in 1994 by Éditions du Griffon.