*1935 Golling/Lower Austria
- Title
- “Samba Tänzerin” (“Samba Dancer”) original wooden model
- signed
- signed and dated “O.E. Höfinger 66/92”
- Material
- original lime wood model
- Height
- 78 ¾ in
Oskar Höfinger’s sculpture „Samba Dancer“ symbolizes perfect body control, a precise sense of rhythm and the greatest passion for dance. The exciting play of eroticism and control, which is so typical for this Latin American dance, determines the columnar composed figure. Its surface, consisting of numerous geometric surfaces, is typical of Höfinger’s „crystalline figures“ of the 1960s. This gives the samba dancer a shimmering, constantly changing setting of light and shadow. Born in 1935, the Austrian sculptor Oskar Höfinger repeatedly dealt with the theme of dance during this period (e.g. „Tänzerische Bewegung“ 1967, „Tanz“ 1967 or „Tänzerin“ 1969). The monumental execution of the „Samba Dancer“ in wood was created in 1992 according to an early design from 1966. According to the artist, only small versions of the sculpture were produced in 1966. In the larger-than-life version only this original wooden model existed for more than two decades. Only in the recent past has the artist also made bronze castings of this impressive sculpture, whose metallic surfaces reveal new exciting facets of this crystalline figure.
Provenance: collection, Vienna
illustr. in: Oskar Höfinger. Skulptur, Vienna 2015, p. 33.