A FREDERICK HART PATINATED BRONZE: EX NIHILO FIGURE NO. 2 (FRAGMENT)Frederick Elliot Hart (Ameri...

A FREDERICK HART PATINATED BRONZE: EX NIHILO FIGURE NO. 2 (FRAGMENT) Frederick Elliot Hart (American, 1943-1999), 2002 Signed, dated, and inscribed F. E. HART (c) 2002 1/X AP to the bronze, on a black marble stand. height of bronze 37in (94cm) Footnotes: Frederick Elliot Hart (American, 1943-1999) began his career working with Italian stone masons at the Washington National Cathedral. Conceived by George Washington as a national church, the Cathedral took over eight-three years to create (1907 - 1990) and is the sixth largest Gothic cathedral in the world. In the early 1970s, he began sketches for the Cathedral's International competition for the West facade's 'creation' sculptural series. Hart's design eternalizes the visualization of creation, breaking away from stiff biblical depictions and making it 'a contemporary idea of Creation, a vision of an unfolding universe'. Dubbed by Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) as the most important American religious commission of the 20th century, Hart was granted the commission for Ex Nihilo at thirty-one. This particular figure is cast from a fragment of one of the figure's from the composition. Creatio ex nihilo is Latin for 'creation out of nothing'; the theory that matter was created by God at the initial cosmic moment. Hart's allegorical vision of this concept demonstrates the heroic struggle for awakening and consciousness. Hart was also granted the commission for the Three Soldiers at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the National Mall in Washington D.C. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing