César (César Baldaccini)
Hommage à Léon
Date 1958 - 1964
Medium Bronze
Dimensions 242 x 106.5 x 64.8 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-100
100.jpg
Léon Jacques, the owner of the factory in Villetaneuse where César worked for 12 years, supplied the artist with materials and assistants. The welded iron original, measuring 89 centimetres high, was made in 1958. The first bronze was finished in 1964, and César first exhibited it the following year. Replicas were created, by Susse (in 1964-1979, edition of six plus three artist’s proofs) and by Bocquel (small version, in 1980, 150 cm high, edition of six plus two artist’s proofs and two not for sale copies). The version held by the Berardo Collection is one of the large-scale versions, in bronze, from 1982. Following his usual practice, César reworked his replicas, making each one of them an ‘original’. There is another bronze version, of the same height and date as that in the Berardo Collection, at the French Finance Ministry (in Bercy, Paris, in the moat garden), in which the figure holds a coin in his right hand. There is another copy, also reworked, at the Bichat hospital, in Paris (Grand Léon éventré [Large disembowelled Léon]). AC
Galerie Beaubourg, Marianne and Pierre Nahon, Paris; acquired in 1995.