Baltasar Lobo

BALTASAR LOBO (Cerecinos de Campos, Zamora, 1910 – Paris, 1993).
“Couseulles on a pedestal,” 1976.
Carved Macael marble.
Work reproduced in the catalog of the Baltasar Lobo Foundation (Zamora). No. 3298.
Provenance: The artist’s studio, Galería Italia Alicante, and the personal collection of Francisco Pastor (owner of Galería Italia-Alicante).
Signed on the base.
Measurements: 24.5 x 13 x 10 cm.
Featured in the Baltasar Lobo Foundation catalog and originating from the artist’s own studio, this sculpture has a well-documented provenance, including Galería Italia in Alicante and the collection of Francisco Pastor.

The sculpture *Courseulles sur socle* is a particularly significant piece within Baltasar Lobo’s mature body of work. To understand the significance of this work, it is essential to analyze the origin of the Courseulles series, which arose from a commission in 1964 by the prominent Parisian gallery Villand & Gallanis. The gallery asked several of its collaborating artists, including Lobo, to create works intended to decorate the lounge of a large passenger ship. The sculptor from Zamora named this iconic series of torsos “Courseulles,” paying homage to the French shipyard where the vessel was being built.
This series marks a pivotal moment in Lobo’s evolution, encapsulating his definitive transition toward absolute formal synthesis. Unlike his famous depictions of motherhood from previous decades, in the Courseulles series the artist completely omits the head and limbs. By eliminating the anecdotal and the superfluous, he reduces the female anatomy to an irregular rhomboidal outline of extremely fluid lines. This simplification does not seek to negate the body’s sensuality, but rather to exalt its purest essence through a gentle undulation of asymmetrical contours that subtly evokes ocean waves, the billowing of a ship’s sails, or a flag fluttering in the wind.
Stylistically, the work reveals the constant dialogue that Lobo maintained with Mediterranean classicism and the abstract avant-garde movements of the first half of the 20th century, as a direct heir to figures such as Jean Arp and Constantin Brâncuși. The treatment of the white marble in this piece is masterful: the stone, traditionally heavy and rigid, is carved with such delicacy that the transitions between the concavities and convexities of the torso emulate the plasticity of flesh and the dynamism of water.The pedestal (sur socle) is not merely an accessory support but an active component of the sculptural discourse. By converging the figure’s entire mass at a single, tapered point of contact on the pyramidal base, Lobo achieves a miracle of formal balance. The sculpture appears to levitate, transforming the intrinsic heaviness of the marble into an experience of weightlessness, contained energy, and lyrical lightness. This series, found in major international collections and at the Baltasar Lobo Museum in Zamora, continues to be regarded as one of the most beautiful examples of how 20th-century sculpture succeeded in reconciling the warmth of the human figure with the rigor of geometric abstraction.

Regarded as one of the great innovators of 20th-century Spanish sculpture, Baltasar Lobo achieved widespread international recognition and was honored with France’s Official Prize for Arts and Letters (1981) and Spain’s National Prize for Plastic Arts (1984). His work is part of major international museums and collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, the Connaught Brown Gallery in London, the Thomas Ladengalerie in Munich, and the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf, in addition to a museum in Zamora dedicated exclusively to his work.