Lot 455: Baizerman (Saul, 1889-1957). Male Nude, hammered

Baizerman (Saul, 1889-1957). Male Nude, hammered bronze sculpture, length 18 cm (7 ins), height 5 cm (2 ins) Provenance: From the collection of Frank McEwen, writer and art critic, who worked for the British Council. Saul Baizerman was born in Vitebsk, Russia, in 1889, and was involved in the early stages of the Bolshevik revolution, for which cause he and his brother robbed a bank in 1906. He escaped from jail with the assistance of his father and fled to the United States, where he settled in New York and trained as a sculptor at various art schools. He began to work directly on metal sculpture while studying in Paris in 1925, and developed a technique of beating copper with a hammer to produce figurative shapes. His work tends to focus on working class subjects, such as the series of small-scale statuettes in bronze and plaster he produced under the heading 'The City and The People' and 'Labor'. With accompanying letter to Frank McEwen from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, relating to the present work, dated February 24, 1987. (1)

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