Reclining Torso

The profound lyrical nature of Josef Wagner and his modern sculpture retaining a connection with tradition were fully manifest in the 1930s, especially in a number of women’s torsos from 1934-1936 in which he seemed to capture the moment of transformation of a woman’s body into a natural stone form. The bond between the figure and stone and the anthropomorphic shape reminiscent of a landscape relief can be understood as a metaphor for the unity between man and nature. This set ends with finely modelled torsos partly wrapped in draperies. The melancholy dream-like character of Wagner’s torsos was replaced with poetic allegories of sorrow and anxiety in the second half of the 1930s.