Beschreibung:

PAS DE QUATRE, 1981 Frederick Edward McWilliam RA HRUA (1909-1992)
Signature: Medium: plaster; (painted) Dimensions: 78in. (198.12cm) Provenance: The Artist's Estate; Mayor Gallery, London; Where purchased by the previous owner; Collection of Louis Kinlen; Thence by descent to Judge Dermot Kinlen; His sale, Adams, 28 May 2008, lot 30; Private collection Exhibited: Literature: Denise Ferran and Valerie Holman, The Sculpture of F.E. McWilliam, Lund Humphries, Surrey, 2012, catalogue no. 475 (illustrated p.169) Pas de Quatre, literally is 'step for four' a ballet dance for four dancers, choreographed by Jules Perrot in 1845. McWilliam loved the ballet and sculpted the portrait bust of the Irish born ballerin... na, Dame Ninette de Valois (1898 - 2001) in 1963, the plaster cast, of which, is in the collection of the FEMcWilliam Gallery, Banbridge. Bronze casts of this portrait head are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, in Convent Garden and in the Royal Ballet School, which she founded. Pas de Quarter belongs to McWilliam's leg series, which spanned from 1978 until 1987, when McWilliam used female legs in a provocatively playful way, often using similar casts of legs to create different works, as in 'Legs Signalling A & B, 1978, Ferran & Holman, no.466 & no. 467. In this work, the four legs below and the four legs above represent the four ballerinas, pirouetting together at the end of the ballet divertissement. The strong contrast of black and white suggests movement with the feet on points, flowing into the four legs above, which also suggest the uplifted arms of the ballerinas. In the photograph McWilliam took of his sitting room in Holland Park in 1988, the same year, his wife Beth died, 'Pas de Quatre' is included. Unusual in its form and dramatic in black and white, it had a certain significance for McWilliam, to have it included in his sitting room, at this time. Dr Denise Ferran September 2017 more