Marseille
1960 (cast 1963)
Bronze
Cèsar
French, b. Marseilles, 1921-1998
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
Perhaps because of an early life spent in the poverty of an Italian neighborhood in Marseilles, César felt more at home in the industrial setting of a scrap yard than in an artist’s studio. Primarily concerned with abstract forms, he turned to cheap scrap metal to create his often provocative art. The shape of Marseille, named for the seaport town where he was born, is suggestive of the sail of a boat in the harbor. Tiny shells and other coastal debris appear imbedded in the heart of the sail. The original Marseille, in the collection of the Hirshhorn, consists of numerous pieces of welded scrap metal. This bronze was made from a mold of the original and bears the evidence of its ancestry of welded steel construction.