Gordon Baldwin - Design London Tuesday, April 27, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Catalogue Essay

    As with most of Baldwin’s sculptures, the title came last. Having made the piece, Baldwin recalled a poem by Arp :-
     
    “He who tries to bring down a cloud
    by shooting at it with arrows
    will use his arrows in vain. Many
    sculptors resemble such strange hunters
     
    What one should do is this: one
    should charm the cloud by fiddling
    on a drum or drumming on a
    fiddle. Before long the cloud will descend frolic on the ground and filled with self-confidence turn into stone
     
    That’s how with a wave of his hand
    the sculptor creates his most beautiful sculpture
     
    The ‘three-dimensional’ decoration – white ground, drifting wash of colour and stark black bands – is very reminiscent of the effect produced by the studio sky-light, and here too, we see another manifestation of the ‘enigma’, a mystery wrapped and securely tied up – a parcel of dreams.  The poem, of course, says much about the way in which an idea can become a work of art. The vessel has an overall grid pattern incised, and the broad bands of cobalt carbonate were poured from a jug.
     

 

36

‘Cloud 2’

1996
Earthenware, white slip, splashed blue pigment over an incised and inlaid design.
60 cm. (23 ½ in.) high

Painted with ‘GB 1 / 96’.

Estimate
£3,500 - 4,500 

Sold for £9,375

Design

28 April 2010
London