Lot 45: OTAKAR SVEC

OTAKAR SVEC CZECH 1892-1955 SUNBEAM - MOTORCYCLIST (SLUNEČNÍ PAPRSEK - MOTOCYKLISTA) inscribed O. ŠVEC on the base bronze height: 119cm., 46 3/4 in; length: 220cm., 86 1/2 in. depth: 47cm., 18½in. 45 x 90 inches

Greenwich, Connecticut, Bruce Museum, The Pleasures of Collecting: Part II, Modern and Contemporary Art, 2003

Peter Cannon-Brookes, Czech Sculpture 1800-1938, London, 1983, p. 116, fig. 180, another cast illustrated
Czech Modern Art 1900-1960, National Gallery & Trade Fair Palace, Prague, exh. cat., 1995, p. 152, another cast illustrated
Jiří Hlušička, The Hascoe Collection of Czech Modern Art, Prague, 2004, p. 25, mentioned; p. 206, no. S141, catalogued; pp. 126-127, pls. 111 & 112, illustrated

Sunbeam Motorcycle is one of the most iconic and well known Futurist sculptures of Otakar Švec. The first cast of 1924 is in the collection of the National Gallery, Prague. When it was displayed at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the French critics received it with enthusiasm and hailed it as a supremely contemporary expression of sculpture. Švec, on the strength of this success, later went on to create several sports awards showing athletes in motion.

The figure of the motorcyclist enabled Švec to capture movement and motion, whilst at the same time portraying a quintessentially contemporary and modern image.