LONDON.- Encompassing the full sweep of 20th-century sculpture - through figurative and abstract work, the diverse approaches of male and female artists, and disparate geographical origins (from Taiwan to Cornwall to the Côte d'Azur) - ‘Taking Shape’ is a rare collection that was passionately assembled over the course of 40 years by Mary and George Bloch. A couple who were ahead of the curve in their approach to collecting important pieces by a diverse group of international artists before a number of them had found international recognition, their collection of sculpture unites European Modernism, the height of post-war British art, as well as the roots of Cubism and kinetic experimentation.

Each of the 22 works in this collection represents the visions of some of the world’s finest artists, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Jean Dubuffet, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Laurens, Barry Flanagan, Jean Arp, Germaine Richier and Ju Ming. The vast majority of the collection will now appear at auction for the first time, offered as part of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale on 22nd June 2017.

“It is rare to be able to offer a group of works that is so cohesive and yet each piece in the collection stands alone as an exemplary work, all by key figures of Modernist sculpture and perfectly encompassing the different strands of 20th-Century art; Mary and George Bloch were true visionaries. Works with such a prestigious provenance that are also so fresh to the market are highly sought after in today’s market.” Georgina Gold, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale

Perhaps the most prominent thread through this collection is a Modernist approach to figurative art. Sometimes this is sensual - Laurens’ L’Automne and Archipenko’s Seated Black Torso – other times it is amorphous, as in the works by Moore and Dubuffet. Meanwhile, the body is represented by Giacometti, Richier and Flanagan, and Abstraction comes to the fore with works including Hepworth’s Four-Square (Four Circles) and Calder’s Double Helix (The Helices).

George & Mary Bloch
From the late 1960s through to the late 2000s the couple formed several collections of importance, including a world-renowned collection of Chinese snuff bottles which Sotheby’s was privileged to have sold in Hong Kong in 2014, and assemblages of Southeast Asian art, Japanese ivory and lacquer, Old Master prints and 20th-century Western art. The Blochs were committed autodidacts. “Mary used every free moment to visit museums and galleries in the cities where business took me,” noted George. “We attended lectures in museums in the evenings and during weekends and above all kept reading books.” Their collecting activities gave them the opportunity to meet artists in Britain, America, France and Italy. Mary also became a valued member of the Peggy Guggenheim Advisory Board in Venice.

George Bloch was born in Vienna in 1920 into a family of respected Austrian industrialists. Schooled in England, as a boy he would enjoy visits to the British Museum, but due to the Anschluss his family fled Austria in the late 1930s and resettled in Shanghai. Later, he built up a hugely successful business in Hong Kong, manufacturing housewares and computer parts and importing and distributing timepieces.

In 1969 he married Mary, who was born in Tianjin, the daughter of White Russian émigrés. It was a meeting of minds: George had already formed a major collection of stamps and Mary, who was fluent in Mandarin Chinese, had been surrounded by Chinese culture all her life. Art was therefore a strong bond for the newlyweds. They settled into a pattern of searching out works, at auctions and through trusted galleries, such as Perls Galleries in New York and Waddington Galleries in London.
They made a close friend in the renowned art dealer Leslie Waddington. “They were clients of Leslie’s for as long as I can remember,” recalled Clodagh Waddington, Leslie’s widow. “George and Mary were amazingly knowledgeable and enthusiastic collectors and covered so many different fields of collecting.” The two couples socialised together in both Europe and Hong Kong. “It was always a joy. Conversation over the dinner table was intellectually stimulating and great fun and browsing through their homes was a fascinating and educational experience.”

After George’s passing in 2009, Mary decided that parts of their various collections should be dispersed in accordance with the plans they had agreed long before his illness. In recent years, Sotheby’s has staged a series of hugely successful sales of their snuff bottles. “Every art collector knows that he or she is only the temporary trustee of the objects that form their collection,” George once observed. “Sooner or later the cycle recommences and the art objects pass again into other hands.”

Highlights from the Collection

• Alberto Giacometti Buste de Fraenkel Bronze 1956-59 Estimate: £400,000-600,000

• Barbara Hepworth Four-Square (Four circles) Bronze 1966 Estimate: £200,000-300,000

• Henry Moore Reclining Figure Bronze 1957 Estimate: £500,000-700,000

• Jean Dubuffet Siphonus Acrylic on Klegecell 1971 Estimate: £500,000-700,000

• Pablo Picasso Petite femme enceinte Bronze 1948 Estimate: £250,000-350,000

• Barry Flanagan The Drummer Bronze 1988 Estimate: £80,000-120,000

• Barbara Hepworth Sculpture with colour Bronze 1940 Estimate: £20,000-30,000