Son of the director of Le TEMPS, a great man of the press, Mr Adrien-A. Hébrard was well-placed to become a diplomat or a statesman. With such a father, he could have very easily chosen a sinecure but instead put himself to work. This photograph is a picture of him dressed in overalls in the simple décor of his studio.

M. A-A. Hébrard was a caster, a true artist and his collaboration was sought by the greatest sculptors of the time.

As he himself said: "I always liked art and the artists…and I thought that it would serve the best interests of aesthetics to immortalize such beauty in bronze…the sanction of the great artist Falguière and the encouragements and advice of my friend, master sculptor Desbois helped me progress in my work…I have cast the works of Dalou, Charpentier, Puech, Bourdelle, and Rodin, who even commissioned me to cast his superb 'Thinker'."

The lost-wax casts of A-A. Hébrard have the entire value and integrity of the originals where one finds the "mark" of the artist, because for each reproduction he creates a new wax that must be retouched by the sculptor. These bronzes seem to maintain the palpitations of the soft and smooth wax that can never be compared with commercial copies where nothing of the original work survives.

The works of Hébrard are alive, as if they were sculpted directly by the hands of the artist. Of course such results demand an inordinate amount of time. Such a bronze was expensive and demanded a year of work, of constant care. But it was well worth such effort because such a work has defied time and lasted centuries.

The bronzes of A-A. Hébrard are incredibly sought after and so his name has become very well-known and respected in the art world. throughout the world.

In 1921 André LANSKOY left Russia for Paris after a visit to Constantinople. He moved into a community home in Paris in the Montparnasse district, occupied by many Russian immigrants living in France at that time. He was educated at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière where he became friends with Soutine, discovered the work of Van Gogh and Matisse and studied the Old Masters at the Louvre and the exhibitions throughout Paris.

Beginning in 1923, Lanskoy presented his works at the Galerie La Licorne amongst other Russian artists including Sonia and Robert DELAUNAY, ZADKINE and TERECHKOVITCH and participated for the first time in the Salon d'Automne. During this time, his paintings were mostly of representations of interior scenes, landscapes and portraits.

His style was of the Slavic tradition: flattened space, skewed perspectives, use of texture and bright colors. André LANSKOY was very much therefore a member of the Russian milieu of art. However, he was soon set apart from his contemporaries when Wilhelm UHDE organized his first individual exhibition in Paris in 1925.

In the context of the Second World War and for two years, the artist was almost entirely absent from the artistic scene, although he did participate in a traveling exhibition in the Netherlands at The Hague, in Utrecht and in Amsterdam in 1938.

It was during this time that the artist's style moved towards a vision less figurative and more abstract.
André LANSKOY explored color above all and the construction of forms to attain in the end total disintegration of such forms. Little by little he distanced himself from the figurative style in a way that was completely unique from the cubists. In the works of André LANSKOY the light is distributed in a uniform fashion, the colors are flattened and the geometric forms create space, all while creating an effect that makes the subject disappear.

"When you look at the color of the palette, it is not more figurative then if it was to represent a flower, or more abstract that if it was to give birth to an imaginary form…As for the representation of the figurative world, I don't think it is an essential part of the painting."(…) A blotch on a canvas searches to take on a certain form and struggles with the other blotches already laid on the same canvas. The outcome of this struggle is the birth of the painting."

André LANSKOY in 1952, Anvers, Zaal, C.A.W

LANSKOY, éditions Pittiglio, 1990.

" What do we call an artist who establishes the modern premise that a complete work of art need not presuppose the whole human form and whose guidance in completing partial figures and hybrid montages was the total effect?...

His modernity is often cited in his ability to capture fluid energy, the mobilization of the body which destroys distinction between its parts, and the defiance of gravity, as in his sculpture of Nijinsky." - Rodin Rediscovered by Albert E. Elsen, editor

Vaslav Nijinksy was considered to be the greatest dancer of the pre-World War I era and was referred to by one of his fellow dancers as "the eighth wonder of the world". Creating a choreography that was far from that of traditional ballet, he revolutionizing dance with his radical angular movements.

Rodin's first saw Nijinksy when he attended the première of Debussy's l'Après-midi d'un faune at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. His performance was deemed by half of Paris as scandalous, yet Rodin was staunchly defended the dancer and as a result the two forged a friendship. To express his gratitude, Nijinksy would visit the artist in his studio and dance privately for him. The sculpture is inspired by these rendez-vous.

Between New York, Paris, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Buenos- Aires, London and other world capitals, the name Celita de Cardeñas resounds, not only because of her jet-set lifestyle but also because of her sheer elegance, (voted one of the most elegant women in the world by Vogue).

Exceptionally cultured and refined, she was the friend and collectioneuse of Mimo Rotella, Diego Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol and other great artists. Celita de Cardeñas has therefore built an extraordinary collection of great works of art that have been chosen with rigor and fine taste.

Today we have the honor to present you with a part of her collection that will now be dispersed throughout the world and we wish to congratulate her for the diversity of her taste and her support of international art.

For most of his life, Diego considered that it was his older brother by 13 months, Alberto, who was the artist. Diego, gifted since childhood for manual work, secretly dreamed to make furniture. Alberto, on the other hand, did not cease to draw décor around the house. Yet although the two brothers differed greatly in personality, the first being more taciturn and reserved and the second much more of an extrovert, they were nevertheless strongly linked to one another.

However, it would be Alberto who would establish his name in the art world first amongst the surrealists and then as the commissioned artist of some of the most prestigious collectors of the first half of the 20th century. From a young age, Diego was taught to play the role of assistant, posing for Alberto up to the latter's death, playing his muse and his double, helping him on his commissions won and remaining financially independent on his brother until late in his career.

It wasn't until the early 1950s that Diego agreed to allow his friends to share with others the well-kept secret of his skills, although at the time he rested committed to his craftsman works and did not spend much time on his own creations. It was during this period that by chance Diego began to focus on creating furniture, an endeavor which happened almost by chance, first by making stands to embellish some sculptures of Alberto less than 10 cm high.1

Using his mastery of simple forms and geometric assembly, he created a form of furniture that was proportionate and that at the same time belonged in the domain of art. In each of his models, the emphasis is on functionality and the inspiration is drawn from a rigorous classicism. Like artisans from another age, he had an infallible sense of proportions, and gauged his measurements by the eye and the hand.2

However, it was not until after the untimely death of Alberto, that Diego's true talent and artistic personality was unveiled. Despite his indisputable talent in furniture making, animals appeared to be his favored subjects; while Alberto nourished a fascination with the human figure, Diego forged a special relationship with the animal world, the direct result of a childhood spent among the animals of his village and of the woods of Valle Bregaglia.

The animals of Diego are always of reduced dimensions, generally never exceeding 10 centimeters high. As they are supposed to be seen from far, shrubs and birds, and the tree and the horses in this work, are often modeled flat in low relief rather than in the round. The effect is playful and decorative, animating the interiors of the consoles and tables that Diego created. Quite often animals were assembled in small groups on the table or consoles used as a scene to tell a story.

Before creating a piece of furniture, Diego often made a reduced model, always in plaster, that he submitted and sometimes offered to the commissioning client.
He cast always his objects in bronze, but he insisted on being personally in charge of every step of the creation of an object, therefore requiring the foundry to send him the casts piece by piece for him to assemble, model and add the patina himself. Thus being, every single one of Diego's creations was a labor of love that continues to enchant us all.

Although approximately 150 sculptures in varying states of repair were found in Degas's studio after his death in 1917, only one, La Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years) was exhibited during his lifetime. Fearing criticism by contemporaries accustomed to the classical tradition that his sculpture was much too "realist", Degas only cast a few of his most prized sculptures into plaster, La Danse espagnole being one of these rare works. In fact, photographs taken by photographer friend of the artist, Gauthier, show a plaster cast of this work was present in Degas' apartment at the time of his death.

Degas made sculpture through much of his career, working predominantly in wax, however, using sculpture not for posterity but mostly as a means to give more depth and expression to his painting and drawings, for which he was most acclaimed during his lifetime.

Having no formal training as a sculptor and an inclination to impetuous experiment, many of his creations were either unstable or fragile, necessitating a variety of improvised and ready-made wire armatures attached to wooden bases to steady the sculptures. However, it is exactly this instability and choice of precarious poses that renders Degas's sculptures so unique amongst his contemporaries and predecessors, so infused with life and movement.

Although he did express interest in the possibility of casting some of his sculptures into bronze late in his career, is was not until after Degas's death that a collection 74 wax sculptures by Degas that were finally cast into bronze. Of these sculptures, forty are dancers. This great honor was bestowed upon M. A.A. Hébrard. Hébrard's talent in immortalizing such sculptures through the lost-wax casting method transcended the level of artisan, equating him to a veritable artist in his own right.

Since the completion of its casting, the Degas sculptures have been dispersed to museums and private collections throughout the world.

A spiritual descendent of Cézanne, Valmier was one of the first painters to pursue the Cubist aesthetic. From as early as 1909, Valmier explored the Cubist idiom independently from Braque and Picasso, whom he did not know at the time. Valmier first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1913 and from 1919 until his death, was represented by Léonce Rosenberg, who also looked after Gleizes, Herbin and Laurens.

Like many Cubists, Valmier was tempted by Abstraction, especially during the years 1921-22, and later, although in a totally different way, after 1930. Like Albert Gleizes, Valmier became increasingly preoccupied with religion and metaphysics, which is reflected in the delicate nuances in colour and forms. In his search to suggest the invisible, Valmier created abstracted pictorial harmonies, which corresponded to harmonies of his soul.

Kees Van Dongen was born in the suburb of Rotterdam and was granted French citizenship twelve years after he moved to Paris in 1929.

He exhibited his first works at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard in 1904 then participated in the Salon of Independents and the Salon d'Automne in 1905. It was at this moment that the term "Fauve", or beast, was first coined by the disapproving art critic Louis Vauxcelles, and that the name Fauvisme was given to qualify this current of art. Interestingly enough, this was the very same critic who had denounced the Impressionists when they first exhibited their works.

It was in 1919, after having discovered jazz and the world of fashion that he executed illustrations of Arabian Nights for the Sirène publishing house and that he became the painter of the fashionable Parisian society. He exhibited his works in his villa in Deauville (1920-21),

La Villa Saïd, and he created the portrait of Anatole France appreciated for its realist style. The price of his works continued to climb. Van Dongen is known and appreciated for his palette of bright, lively colors and his sensual and curvaceous figures.

Portrait is a most complex area of artistic practice. Used by contemporary artists to explore issues of identity - national, personal or sexual - the portrait has moved away from its original documentarian roots to become a powerful encounter of exchange between the artist, sitter and spectator.

Shabelewska's THE PAINTER'S STUDIO SERIES are self portraits based on seduction exploring the intimate relationship that exists between the painter and his model, between painting and photography. Influenced by Pablo Picasso Le Peintre et son Modèle body of work, Shabelewska uses her body to perform between the canvas and her camera.

Her face is in movement while the rest of the body lay still leaving a slightly ambiguous feeling in each image. In The Painter's Studio, the painter is never seen. His presence is subdued or just merely suggested. His self-portraits hang in all the shots. However, the model is not the subject of his paintings. The model uses his work to create her strange dance. Shabelewska is the artist, the sitter, the spectator but not the painter. The Painter's Studio is a series comprised of 9 images.

Shabelewska started to explore color photography in 2003, with The Painter's Studio self-portraits and other recent works entitled 'The Vermeer series". She is most known for her black & white work, ROADS, that was reviewed in ART NEWS in May 2006, and especially for her famous large scale portrait of Helmut Newton 'Reach for the Stars'. She has exhibited at Bjorn Ressle Fine Art, New York, Briggs Robinson Gallery at the Soho House and in Antwerp. She currently resides and works in New York City.

Vlaho BUCHOVAC first came to Paris when he was 22 years old to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Highly respected by the young intellects of this period, he was considered the best student by his instructor, the great master painter Cabanel.

Noticed at the 1882 salon for "La grande Iza", a portrait of a curvaceous young woman, Vlaho BUKOVAC had already freed himself from a strict academism inspired by the naturalism of Emile ZOLA. His landscape portraits earned him an excellent reputation and he associated himself with the great portraitists of his time like Léon BONNAT and Théodule RIBOT upon his return from Dalmatia in 1885.

BUKOVAC was in Paris when he painted the portrait of Laura Le Doux in a springtime field, which he named "Au Printemps" in 1883. Using a light palette, he played with the colored shadows of the skin. His gay colors greatly differed from the somber tones of the Northern painters and inspired by the study of light, he painted outside like the Impressionists.

It was during this time that he joined the members of the French school of Modern Realists, the same school that imposed the very first principles of modern art that were accepted a few years later across Europe. He fled from the academic teachings and painted landscapes in the forest of Fontainebleau.

In 1893, he left the splendor of Paris to return to his country to share his culture and became the master of a generation of young painters that is referred to as "The Multicolored School of Zagred". He also founded the Society of Croatian artists, a professional association, and exhibited Croatian art outside of the country. His success continued to grow on an international level and he was furthermore invited to exhibit his works at the second biennial of Venice in 1897 and the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1900.