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Artist or Maker: JEAN ARP (1886-1966)

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Dimensions: 14 7/8 by 14in. 37.8 by 35.6cm

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Provenance: André Breton, Paris (probably acquired from the artist and until at least 1952)
Galleria Arturo Schwarz, Milan
Galleria Pieter Coray, Montagnola
Private Collection

Exhibited:
Saarbrüken, Surrealistische Malerei in Europa, 1952, no. 1
Milan, Galleria Arturo Schwarz, Arp, 1965, no. 11 (as dating from 1926)
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne; Zürich, Kunsthaus, Dada, 1966-67, no. 16 (no. 3 in Zürich; titled Tête and as dating from 1925)
Venice, Biennale XXXIV Internazionale d'Arte, 1968, no. 164

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Notes: Literature:
R. Lebel, ''Il surrealismo all'approssimarsi della guerra. L'oggetto surrealista," L'arte moderna, VII, Milan, 1967, illustrated p. 283 (as dating from 1926)
André Breton, Der Surrealismus und die Malerei, Berlin, 1967, illustrated p. 51 (as dating from 1929)
Dawn Ades, Dada and Surrealism, London, 1974, illustrated p. 13 (as dating from 1926)
Dawn Ades, El Dada y el Surrealismo, Barcelona, 1975, illustrated p. 13 (as dating from 1926)
Bernd Rau, Jean Arp, The Reliefs: Catalogue of Complete Works, New York, 1981, no. 74, illustrated p. 43

The Dadaists' interest in ethnographic art provided Arp with inspiration for his reliefs from the 1920s. The reduction of the facial features in his work from this period to minimal, geometric forms, as in Tête: objet á traire, reflects Arp's allegiance to abstraction, and the communicative qualities in the masks of Africa and Oceania. As noted by Jane Hancock, ''Despite Arp's advocacy of abstraction during the years of Dada activity in Zurich, he created at least a few figurative works in those years, and from them he developed a new representational style that he used throughout the next decade. About 165 reliefs and a modest number of prints and drawings are known from the 1920s. They display a new iconography of figures, faces, and common household items that Arp once referred to as 'object language' " (Arp (exhibition catalogue), London, 1986, p. 67). Consistent with this theme, the title of the present work may be translated as ''Head or Object to Milk,'' a testament to the whimsical and humorous intent of Arp's abstracted works.

Tête: objet á traire was most likely acquired directly from the artist by André Breton, who wrote, ''The 'reliefs' of Arp, which possess simultaneously the heaviness and weightlessness of a swallow alighting on a telephone wire, these reliefs which convey in their clever coloring all the songs of love, while their rudimentary découpage confers the impulsiveness of anger,...allow me to make only a most feeble attempt at interpretation" (André Breton, Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, New York, 1945, p. 75, translated from the French).