Rembrandt Bugatti
Two Vultures, around 1913/14

Artist
Rembrandt Bugatti

Title
Two Vultures

Year of creation
around 1913/14

Technique and dimensions
bronze, 31 x 38 x 31 cm / WVZ No. 309 / Cast No. 2/6

Year of acquisition
2015

Partial acquisition with the help of the Friends of the National Gallery.

In the zoological gardens of Paris and later Antwerp, Rembrandt Bugatti discovered the theme of his life: the exotic animal: the sculptor made anteaters, tapirs and marabou, yaks, condors and kangaroos the almost sole subject of sculpture for the first time in European art history. Bugatti looked long and hard at his models. He then created his works mostly in a single step in front of or even in the animal enclosure itself. His enormous powers of observation and complete mastery of his sculptural means allowed him to capture the nature of the animals in concise poses in clay and entire behaviors scenically on the plinth to arrange. In addition to the big cats, Bugatti's main focus was on birds. Social behavior, body shapes, plumage and movements were of enormous inspirational power for the artist.

In Bugatti's depiction of two African vultures, the flowing modeling of his early years and the realism of his middle years have given way to a strictly contoured composition that appears almost geometric and whose expansive forms create a powerful contrast to the narrow plinth. On the eve of the First World War, the work oscillates between an uncompromising, almost martial effect and the expression of protective togetherness - which Bugatti himself was denied in life. The work is now on the first exhibition floor of the Alte Nationalgalerie, surrounded by the no less existential paintings by Lovis Corinth and Max Beckmann from the years before the First World War.