Lot 68: SAVA BOTZARIS 1894-1965

signed, inscribed FAS and numbered 3/8

bronze with a dark brown patina on an ebonised wood base

height 52cm., 20 1/2 in. (excluding base)

M. Forrest, Art Bronzes, West Chester, 1988, p.399, no.9.36.

The Artist's Estate

In a letter to Sava Botzaris, George Bernard Shaw observed that he was '...the only distinguished sculptor of my time who can boast that he has NOT made a bust of G.B.S. Think of all those who have: Rodin, Troubetskoy, Davidson, Sigmund Strobl, Epstein and others of whom you have never heard! Is it not enough?' Fortunately, Shaw decided there was still need for a last sculpted portrait, but warned the sculptor '...if you must you must; but this must positively be the last, as I am getting too old to be presentable' - by the age of about eighty Shaw may have lost his good looks, but he had lost none of his wry sense of humour.

Botzaris exhibited his bronze bust of Shaw at the Leicester Galleries in 1938 with a group of other portrait busts of famous individuals, both literary (James Joyce and Aldous Huxley) and political (Haile Selassie). In these busts he uses an implicit element of caricature to invigorate his portraiture. With the Shaw the sculptor's tactile use of material gives a lively sense of the sitter's sharp wit.

The son of the court painter to Peter I of Hungary, Botzaris studied in Italy and France before settling in London in 1920. His activities as a sculptor were combined with a career as a caricaturist. He held several one-man shows in the late 1920's and 1930's, but emigrated to Venezuela in 1942. The present bronze was cast in 1986 by the Fine Art Society from a surviving bronze as number three in an edition of eight, on the occasion of the pioneering exhibition Sculpture in Britain between the Wars.