Hugo Robus

(1885-1964)

The General 18 7/8 in. (47.9 cm.) high

Footnotes

Provenance
Forum Gallery, New York, March 2006.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, January 30, 2007.

Exhibited
New York, Forum Gallery, Sculpture (Early Works): Chaim Gross, Gaston Lachaise, Elie Nadelman, Hugo Robus, 1978, plaster model exhibited.
Art Chicago, April 28-May 1, 2006.
New York, Forum Gallery, Hugo Robus: Sculpture and Paintings, May 10-June 8, 2007, n.p., illustrated.

Literature
National Art Society, American Art Today: New York World's Fair, New York, 1939, no. 737, another example illustrated.
"The General," New York World-Telegram, March 23, 1946, another example illustrated.
"The General," MKR Art Weekly, April 1-8, 1946, another example illustrated.
Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc., Three Progressive Sculptors, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1946, n.p., no. 11, another example listed.
O. Larkin, Art and Life in America, rev. ed., New York, 1960, p. 458, another example listed. (as General)
S. Tillim, "New York Exhibitions: Month in Review," Arts Magazine, February 1963, vol. 37, no. 5, p. 43, another example listed.
Forum Gallery, L. Goodrich, Hugo Robus (1885-1964): Memorial Exhibition, New York, 1966, n.p., no. 18, another example illustrated.
S.D. Ripley, A. Lerner, ed., L. Nochlin, A. Frankenstein, J.I.H. Baur, M.W. Brown, I. Sandler, D. Ashton, Selected Paintings and Sculpture from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1974, pp. 223, 232, 740, 766, no. 301, another example illustrated.
Delaware Art Museum, Avant-Garde Painting & Sculpture in America, 1910-25, exhibition catalogue, Wilmington, Delaware, 1975, p. 120, another example listed.
T. Armstrong, W. Craven, N. Feder, B. Haskell, R.E. Krauss, D. Robbins, M. Tucker, 200 Years of American Sculpture, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1976, p. 303, another example listed.
J.M. Marter, R.K. Tarbell, J. Wechsler, Vanguard American Sculpture: 1913-1939, exhibition catalogue, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1979, pp. 38, 158, fig. 47, no. 100, another example illustrated.
R.K. Tarbell, Hugo Robus (1885-1964), exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1980, pp. 60, 80, 99, 129, 143, 145, 148, 159-60, 163-64, 238 fig. 24, cat. no. 2, another example illustrated.

The present work is number 2 from an edition of 6 of a posthumous casting of The General and was cast at the Argos Art Casting Foundry in Brewster, New York at the order of the estate of the artist.

Hugo Robus' The General is a magnificent, early example in the artist's oeuvre that exhibits his accomplished abilities as a modeler perfected during his budding years as a sculptor and reveals Robus' strong inclination for portraying the innate aspects of life and nature. Modeled in 1922, The General depicts a horse and rider striding steadily forward. Robus simplified their volumetric forms by eliminating extraneous details and avoided utilizing clearly defined lines and harsh angles. What remains is a dynamic image of a horse and rider defined by its smooth planes and alluring curves that ultimately lends a sense of movement to the sculpture. By removing delineating lines of the rider and horse, Robus allows the two to flow into one another, thus creating an image of rider and horse as one in nature.

Robus found inspiration for his design of The General in the muscular rhythms and Futurist principles found in the work of Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916). Robus studied the work of the Futurists in Paris and saw Boccioni's infamous exhibition at the Galérie Bóetie in June 1913. Similarities in execution are evident between Robus' The General and Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, one of the artist's most coveted sculptures that Robus was likely familiar with. Robus exhibited the first bronze cast of The General in 1939 at the New York World's Fair, where it received noteworthy attention, and exhibited a bronze cast of the work again at The Museum of Modern Art in 1942. Robus would go on to model the image of a horse only three more times in his artistic career in the sculptures Startled Nag (1944), Torso in Flight (circa 1952), and Metropolitan Merry-Go-Round (1949). Arguably none would be as striking in appearance as The General, nor exhibit so clearly the Futurist principles that so greatly impacted his artistic development as a sculptor.