Alexander Liberman | 1981 | Steel
Nature serves as Liberman's aesthetic inspiration. According to the artist, "The whole ambition to create comes from looking at nature. The point is not to copy the forms, but to be inspired by the randomness and the monumentality of what surrounds us." It is this sentiment that accounts perhaps for the underlying spiritual magnetism of his work as seen in Sabine Women I.
The circle has intrigued Liberman throughout the seven decades of his artistic career. Perhaps acting as a metaphor for continuity and the cyclical nature of life, the circle has offered Liberman a myriad of design possibilities.
The elliptical pieces in Sabine Women I were created by slicing steel gas storage tanks on an angle, while the remaining shapes were cut out of sheet steel. All of the pieces were thoughtfully arranged then skillfully welded together to produce a sculpture that appears light and airy. It is a dynamic composition of thrusting, rising, soaring, and swirling metal shapes.
*Gift of the Administrative Counselors