Lot 100: Michael Tombros (Greek, 1889-1974) Fish 32 x 45 x 25 cm.

Fish
signed in Greek (middle left)
marble
32 x 45 x 25 cm.

Provenance:
D. Staikos collection, Athens;
Acquired from the wife of the above by the present owner.

The delicate carving of a pair of fish smoothly and graciously sliding through the water - alluding perhaps to age-old fertility and immortality symbolisms or maternity themes - reveals the gleaming splendour of marble, while the beautifully chiselled space between them accentuates the sense of movement, creating a well balanced and highly expressive composition of curvy motifs, which crystallises sea and sea-life into abstractively pure form.

This fluency in handling rock-hard materials is rooted in the artist's thorough familiarity with the Tinian and Andriot marble-carving tradition of the 19th century.υ1 In a 1931 interview to writer C. Bastias, Tombros noted: "It seems to me that a sculptor must have a sound understanding of marble. I was fortunate enough to have been born practically inside a marble workshop, to have a father who was an able marble-carver and so to have familiarised myself with this thing from my childhood years."υ2

An exceptionally gifted sculptor, a prominent intellectual and a true revitalizing force, Tombros represented one of the most genuine attempts to reorient Modern Greek sculpture by creatively combining the achievements of the past with the aspirations of the present. As N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika had noted, "few have influenced the artistic life of this country more deeply than Tombros. Hardly a single important endeavour, new event, or progressive movement has occurred without him or his contribution."υ3

υ1. See D. Pavlopoulos, 'Michalis Tombros: The Man and the Artist' in Michalis Tombros at the Collection of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Contemporary Art , Andros 2006, pp. 39-40.
υ2. Evdomas magazine, 25.7.1931.
υ3. N. Hadjikyriakos –Ghika in Michael Tombros, 1909-1959, Athens 1959.