Eric Grate
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"Polyfem"
Signed Eric Grate and numbered 1/5. Foundry marks H. Bergman cire perdue. Dark patinated bronze, heigth 62 cm. Mounted on a granite basel, height 10 cm.
Exhibitions
Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, "Eric Grate sculpteur suédois", 22 March - 15 April 1963
Musée d'Ixelles, Brussel, "Eric Grate sculpteur suédois", 7 June - 7 July 1963,
Koninklijke Akademie, Antwerpen, "Eric Grate sculpteur suédois", 23 July - 18 August 1963
Musée de L'Abbaye Saint-Pierre, Gent, "Eric Grate scuplteur suédois", 1963.
Konstakademien, Stockholm, "Eric Grate skulpturer", March 1965, catalogue no. 49.
Národiní Galerie, Prag, "Eric Grate Endre Nemes", September - October 1971.
Galerie de l'Art plastique, Ostrava, "Eric Grate Endre Nemes", 1971.
Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, "Eric Grate Endre Nemes", 1971.
Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm, "Eric Grate sex decennier", 13 May - 1 August 1976, catalogue no. 179.
Oppstuhage, Arvika, "Eric Grate", 1983, catalogue no. 79.
Västerås Konstmuseum, "Eric Grate", 1990, catalogue no. 67.
Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, "Eric Grate", 16 May- 30 June 2002, catalogue no. 4.
Literature
Pontus Grate, Ragnar von Holten, "Eric Grate", SAK, 1978, ill. p. 124.
More information
"Ett antikt krukfragment utgör vasen till denna skulptur vars kraftfulla, kompakta och nästan hotfulla veck har en enda, rund öppning. Detta "öga" kom Eric Grate att assiciera till den grekiska mytologins Polyfemos, en människoätande, enögd cyklop, nu mest känd för att Odysseus råkat i hans våld men undkom genom att berusa jätten och utsticka hans öga." Pontus Grate
Artist
Eric Grates idiosyncratic world of images always invites exploration and wandering within the imagination. While he respects the the earths natural forms, he sometimes "plays with god", manipulating and playing with nature to create new surprising objects which we recognise but simultaneously dont recall. He borrows fragments from nature and uses his endless imagination to create art in his unique way. His visual language emualtes an aura of abstract surrealism derived from "object trouvés". Grate was inspired by natures radiance and its different forms. Stones, roots, insects, bones, all were transformed into sculptures, particularly the insect world was a source of great inspiration for Grates. During the 1960s, beach, hull, and bones were particularly the starting points for his sculptures. He created numerous official artworks.
Grate began his academic trips after finishing his studies at Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts from 1979-20, where he travelled to Italy and Greece, filling his sketchbooks with studies of insects, plants, unique architecture, sculpture, and ceramics. He spent a longer period between 1924 and 1933 in Paris, a formative period where he was one of the few Swedish artists who was associated with the avante garde; we got in contact with none other than the surrealists Jean Arp, Paul Eluard, and Tristan Tzara. Grate is seen by many as one of Sweden's most influential sculptors during the 1900s.
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