CÉSAR Little Bird Man – 1982 Bronze with brown patina Signed ‘César’ on the pedestal, numbered and bearing the foundry mark ‘bocquel Fd, 7/8’ on the edge of the pedestal at the back Edition of 8 Bocquel Foundry 45 × 60 × 16.5 cm Bronze with brown patina; signed, numbered and bearing the foundry mark 17.71 × 23.62 × 6.29 in. “He who has once tasted flight will always walk with his eyes turned towards the sky.”   Leonardo da Vinci In 1956, César was deeply affected by the death of Léo Valentin, nicknamed the ‘bird-man’, a modern-day Icarus who killed himself whilst parachuting during an air show in Liverpool. At his studio in Villetaneuse, the artist then developed a series of welded-iron figures, each with one or two long wings extending from them, evoking the wooden wings the parachutist used to glide to the ground. With their frontal perspective, these sculptures mark a turning point in the artist’s work. This shift from figuration (the human figure) towards abstraction (the wing) heralds the relief panels and, ultimately, the ‘compressions’. The almost headless body, as if blown away by an explosion, extends into a wing that takes on the form of an abstract painting. In this rejection of traditional composition, César reaches the pinnacle of his artistic language. The wing is assembled like a collage, in which the elements lose none of their identity whilst offering a rhythmic modulation of the material. The sculpture suggests the plumage of birds, a banner, or even a painting by N. de Staël. In 1956, César was deeply affected by the death of Léo Valentin, nicknamed ‘the bird-man’, a modern-day Icarus who was killed whilst parachuting during an air show in Liverpool. At his studio in Villetaneuse, the artist went on to create a series of welded-iron figures, each with one or two long wings, evoking the wooden wings the parachutist used to perform his ‘gliding jumps’. With their frontal perspective, these sculptures mark a turning point in the artist’s work. This shift from figuration (the human figure) towards abstraction (the wing) heralds the relief panels and, ultimately, the ‘compressions’. The almost headless body, as if blown away by an explosion, extends into a wing that takes on the form of an abstract painting. In this rejection of traditional composition, César reaches the pinnacle of his artistic language. The wing is assembled like a collage, in which the elements lose none of their identity whilst offering a rhythmic modulation of the material. The sculpture suggests the plumage of birds, a banner, or even a painting by N. de Staël. This work is recorded in the archives of Mrs Denyse Durand-Ruel under no. 2861. CÉSAR