Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Acquired from the above in December, 1978

Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Henri Laurens, 1967, no. 8

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Henri Laurens (exhibition catalogue), Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1957, no. 6, illustration of another cast 
Henri Laurens (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Krugier, Geneva, 1969, no. 3, illustration of another cast p. 8
Michael Harrison, Henri Laurens, Bronzes, Collages, Drawings, Prints (exhibition catalogue), Arts Council of Britain, 1980, no. 6, illustration of another cast p. 4
Sandor Kuthy, Henri Laurens (exhibition catalogue), Bern, 1985, no. 39, illustration of another cast p. 87

Very good condition. Rich dark brown patina. Some minor nicks and scratches on surface, with a 1/2 inch scratch on the top of her head.
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After meeting Georges Braque and other avant-garde artists working in Paris in 1911♌, Henri Laurens formally embraced Cubism and became a practitioner of that discipline, creating works in the round as well as mixed media collages, paintings and drawings.  By 1916 Laurens had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie de l'Effort Moderne in Paris. 

The Great War was the catalyst for the so-called retour à l'ordre that was advocated by Jean Cocteau in his 1926 collection of essays published under the same title. The artistic response to the horrors of the war that were endured by European society called for a "return to order." Laurens and other artists working in the avant-garde tradition renounced Cubism and its tenets in favor of the monumental aesthetic of Classical art. Additiona🍸lly, the raw power of African sculpture influenced the sculpture of Laurens. Consequently, Laurens' figures gradually evolved into 𒁃more rounded shapes beginning in the early 1930s and eschewed the rigid lines of Cubism. 

Executed in 1925, Tête de femme embodies the departure from Cubism toward a more heroic rendering of the female form.  In contrast to Laurens' rigid approach to Cubism, the present work is less concerned with structure than it is with its free-flowing form and accentuated features. For instance, the figure's long nose and powerful eyebrows mirror th🗹e stylized features of Gabon wood sculpture that se💞rved as inspiration to the Modernists working in Paris. (fig. 1)

Fig. 1  Gabon, Reliquary Head, Formerly in the collection of Charles Ratton, Paris, circa 1925-30.

Fig. 2 Henri Laurens in his studio, 1926