Lot 58: Bernard Richters (Dutch, 1888-1966)

Elephant
teakwood
144 cm. high
Conceived in 1926, this piece is probably unique

Ype Koopmans, Bernard Richters, exhibition catalogue,
Amsterdam, Galerie Frans Leidelmeijer, 1993, pp. 14-15, ill. 11

Dutch sculptor Bernard Richters (1888-1966) was born in Rotterdam and followed art classes at the Rotterdamse Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen at the Coolsingel. Fellow-students were Herman Bieling and John Rädecker. Later he went to Germany and in 1912 he worked in Paris, at the same time as the Rädecker brothers and Hildo Krop. Pre-Columbian, African and Oceanic art was becoming popular at the time in Paris and probably had great influence on Richters' mask-like figures. His work developed from an expressionist to a more symbolist approach, but generally it is seen as part of the Amsterdam School movement. He executed architectural sculptures for Amsterdam buildings and in 1924-1925 he was one of the artists working with Hendrik Wijdeveld in the Dutch pavillion of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where he won a silver medal. Despite the appreciation he gained from both artists and the press, poverty was never far away. This might have been caused either by his unsociable character or due to the fact that he found it hard to let his own work go. Richters must therefore have welcomed the commission of the department Handelsmuseum of the new Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam. The institute supplied sculptors with expensive tropical wood and organized exhibitions to promote Dutch-Eastindian products. It was around 1926 that Richters sculpted stair-ornaments and pedestals with exotic motifs like elephants, such as the present lot.

See also: Ype Koopmans, Bernard Richters, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Galerie Frans Leidelmeijer, 1993, pp. 14-15, ill. 11 for a pedestal with comparable elephants
And:
Frans Leidelmeijer and Daan van der Cingel, Art Nouveau and Art Deco in Nederland, 1983, p. 122, ill. 125

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