Germaine RichierThe Bat 1946, cast 1996

Richier created The Bat shortly after returning to Paris from Zurich, where she and her husband, the Swiss-German sculptor Charles-Otto Bänninger (1897–1973), had spent the war years. Her return to France appears to have generated a burst of creative experimentation: in making The Bat, she employed a new technique of dipping tow (rope fibre) in plaster, before draping it over the metal armature that forms the basis of the animal’s lacy wings. Also innovative in this period are the wire spokes themselves; she had first incorporated such wires in a series of sculptures created immediately before The Bat, including Mantis and The Spider I and II (reproduced Germaine Richier: Rétrospective, pp.62–8)… (read more)