pastel on paper, 50.5 x 70.5 cm, signed and dated bottom left, in black, ''DŽAMONJA (19)57''

Research information

The work is titled and signed on the back by Dušan Džamonja.

Notes

Dušan Džamonja dedicated and signed on the back "from Dusko, Zag. 23.XI.1960."

Sharp and elegant forms emerging from a white base represent deer in this pastel by sculptor Dušan Džamonja (1928 – 2009) from 1957. Such stylization of deer can often be found in Džamonja's work from this period, and perhaps his most famous sculptural interpretation of this animal, from the same year, is installed in the atrium of the Student Center in Zagreb. Džamonja was, obviously, captivated by the harmony and elegance of the animal figure and expression of deer antlers. He structures his pastel like a sculpture, or basically a sketch for a sculpture. He emphasizes elements of stillness, the arrangements of mass are important to him and he accentuates their spatiality with shadows, and all the surfaces that form the represented animal are conceived as if constructed from constructive elements, irregular and polyhedral shapes. Such a strongly representative, and even idyllic scene like the sighting of a deer in the forest is not unusual for Džamonja, even though his most famous sculptures are constructivist abstractions. In the 1950s, this sculptor formed his path towards abstract art through studying the elemental forms of motifs and characteristics of materials (for example, in the sculpture "Metalac", from 1953). Džamonja's abstract sculptures are constructed in simple, geometric shapes, with prominent texture of the surface. These deer in pastel, also, emphasize their construction in a way that is characteristic of his contemporary and later artistic creation.

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