NO. 437(B), 1982
Robert Klippel
bronze
138.0 cm height
signed with initials, inscribed, dated and numbered in base: R.K. No 437 ’82 3/6
Meridian Foundry stamp in base
Private collection, Melbourne
Edwards, D., Robert Klippel: A Catalogue Raisonne of Sculpture, CD–Rom accompanying Edwards, D., Robert Klippel, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2002, No. 437 (illus. another example)
Robert Klippel 1920–2001, Australian Art Resources, Melbourne, 2000, cat. 3 (illus. another example)
Always a highly intuitive and original artist, Robert Klippel's unwavering dedication to his art has resulted in the production of some of the most innovative and original sculpture in Australia. As Roger Taylor observes,
'Klippel's aim had always been to constitute an art which reflected mankind's involvement in a 'scientific, machine, speedy age.' As with all his works, Klippel's bronze sculptures took their lead from that celebration of the machine age which informed so much of avant-garde Modernist art in the early twentieth century. His totem-like forms eulogised machinery and mechanical parts in a winsome fusion of technology and art. It was that strange and unexpected combination of forms in Klippel's bronzes which gave them such verve. If each of these sculptures appears to be a series of mechanical parts somewhat randomly, albeit aesthetically pieced together, it is because the reorganisation of inanimate parts into a coercive and cohesive entity was at the core of Klippel's assemblage practice. These bronzes simply represent more innovative manifestations of the unchanging preoccupations within the artist's oeuvre.'1
1. Taylor, R., Robert Klippel 1920-2001, Australian Art Resources, Melbourne, 2001, p. 7