Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 21st October 2019

52 39 Tony Cragg (b.1949) British Two Moods (2002) signed with initials T.C., dated 2002 and numbered 4/6 bronze - number 4 from an edition of 6 63 x 40 x 33cm (24.8 x 15.7 x 13in) Provenance: Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin; Private Collection €100,000-150,000 (£88,495-132,743) In a series of works created in the 1990’s, entitled Rational Beings, Cragg took the profiles of people and translated them into three-dimensional works of art, in which the formal is brought face-to-face with the emotional. Basing these works on the human figure, and on portrait profiles, Cragg does not set out to imitate nature, but to use its forces and effects in the creation of art. Although his approach is highly- analytical and scientific, there is also an element of chance in these sculptures. The portrait profiles are visible from one point of view, but not from another. There is an organic quality, but also a machine finish to these Rational Beings, which begin life as a layered series of elliptical plywood discs fastened, in two axes, to a central spine. The discs are then sanded so that the sculpture acquires a machine-like finish. The final form is covered with a skin so that the underlying discs, appearing something like a frozen whirlwind, give the work its visual energy. These works by Cragg can be described as a contemporary version of the Baroque, full of energy and movement, albeit a movement frozen in time. Born in Liverpool in 1949, Tony Cragg studied art in London, at the Wimbledon School of Art, where he was inspired by his tutor Roger Ackling and also by Richard Long, and then at the Royal College of Art. For many years he has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, where he has a studio and sculpture park. He has exhibited widely, and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1988, winning the Turner Prize that same year. His sculptures range in materials from bronze, to polyurethane, to stainless steel and other materials. A series of early sculptures were made using plastic found objects, assembled as large mosaics. Large sculptures by him have been placed, either on permanent or temporary display, in many cities around the world including New York, Paris, Malaga, Bonn and London. Peter Murray, September 2019