Bronze
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jean-arp-667" aria-label="More by Jean Arp (Hans Arp)" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Jean Arp (Hans Arp)</a>
Pagoda Fruit
Purchased 1951
abstraction
from recognisable sources
irregular forms
man-made
non-representational
organic
sculpture bronze
4 October 2008 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
4 October 2008 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
2008-10-04
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
2008-10-04
Heimo Zobernig and the Tate Collection
Exhibition
14 April 2009 – 16 June 2013
2013-06-16
14 April 2009 – 16 June 2013
2013-06-16
2009-04-14
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2009-04-14
This is Sculpture
Collection based display
20 May 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
20 May 2017 – 17 September 2017
2017-09-17
2017-05-20
Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, The Netherlands)
7 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
2017-10-07
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
2017-05-20
Arp: The Poetry of Forms
Loan-out
Pagoda Fruit
Object: 889 × 679 × 762 mm
Weight: 110kg
Purchased 1951
<p><b>Jean Arp</b><span> 1886-1966 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arp-pagoda-fruit-n06025" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06025</span></a> </span><b>Fruit de Pagode</b><span> (Pagoda Fruit) 1949 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Not inscribed</span>
<br/><span>Bronze, 33 7/8 x 28 ¾ x 23 ½ (91 x 73 x 59.7)</span>
<br/><span>Purchased from artist (Knapping Fund) 1951</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
XXV Biennale, Venice, June-October 1950 (Arp 5, plaster repr. pl.107); </span><i>Arp</i><span>, Galerie Maeght, Paris, November-December 1950 (1); </span><i>Sculpture</i><span>, Battersea Park, London, May-September 1951 (3, repr.)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Note on no.5 in exh. catalogue </span><i>Begründer der modernen Plastik</i><span>, Kunsthaus, Zurich, November-December 1954; Carola Giedion-Welcker, </span><i>Jean Arp</i><span> (London 1957), No.97, p.111, repr. p.51; Ionel Jianou, </span><i>Jean Arp</i><span> (Paris 1973), No.97, p.71</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia, </span><i>Jean Arp</i><span> (Paris 1952), n.p.; Herbert Read, </span><i>Arp</i><span>
(London 1968), p.89 in colour; Simon Wilson, </span><i>The Surrealists</i><span> (London 1974), pl.23 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The artist wrote on 24 November 1951 that the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/maquette" title="Glossary definition for 'Maquette'"><span>maquette</span></a> in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/plaster-of-paris" title="Glossary definition for 'Plaster of Paris'"><span>plaster</span></a> for this work (ht. 23cm) was executed in 1934. Two casts were made from it in cement and were in his studio at Meudon. The present work, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> in 1949, was the first <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>bronze</span></a> to be made; the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> would not exceed three bronzes. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Additional information is contained in a note on a further cast published in the catalogue of the 1954 Zurich exhibition: 'The small model, 20cm high, carved direct, is in the artist's studio. He had it enlarged in plaster and cast in bronze after the war. A bronze with a black <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/patina" title="Glossary definition for 'Patina'"><span>patina</span></a> was exhibited in 1950 at the Venice Biennale and was bought by the Tate Gallery from an open-air exhibition at Battersea Park in London. The bronze exhibited in Zurich is its twin and its patina is natural. Arp called it pagoda fruit because it is a fruit of his imagination and because the upper part of the work evokes for him the hooded roof of Chinese pagodas.' The other two bronzes are now in the University of California at Los Angeles and the Ströhmer collection, Darmstadt. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The catalogue of Arp's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/relief" title="Glossary definition for 'Relief'"><span>reliefs</span></a> and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculptures</span></a> by Mme Marguerite Arp in Jianou, op. cit., lists under 1934 three versions of 'Pagoda Fruit' 23cm high, including the two casts in cement mentioned above, both of which were then still in the Arp collection at Clamart, and a carving in white marble owned by Hove Equipment of Canada in Montreal. The marble and one of the cement casts (known as 'Pagoda Fruit on a Basin') are both mounted on wooden socles. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Mme Arp's secretary Greta El-Hinnawy Ströh adds (letter of 2 October 1974): 'Monsieur André Mounier, who worked with Arp over many years, has confirmed to me that Arp did not carve marble directly. The only "tailles directes" by him were done in limestone. Therefore it appears that he first made the plaster and had the marble cut - under his supervision - by a stone cutter (either Mr Santelli or Mr Tarabella). The plaster for the enlargement which is in the Tate would have been made by him with the help of an assistant. Often - when enlarging sculptures - Arp changed the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/proportion" title="Glossary definition for 'Proportion'"><span>proportions</span></a> as he went along and therefore a purely mechanical enlargement by someone else was not permitted. The only cases where they are even nowadays carried out ("Les Trois Graces" in Jerusalem, "L'Apparat d'une Danse", Bahnhof Rolandseck, etc) are with the so-called "Seuils" = thresholds. Only here enlargements can be made without changing the proportions, because the sculpture doesn't change its harmony.' </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The cylindrical base on which the Tate's sculpture stands was made in accordance with the artist's instructions and is similar in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a> to the bases of the white marble and 'Pagoda Fruit on a Basin' of 1934. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.22-3, reproduced p.22</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction from recognisable sources irregular forms man-made non-representational organic