MARATHONIENNE H.360 cm Noir PHILIPPE HIQUILY

Masterful and imposing, it rises above our eyes with its giant silhouette. She is the woman, the muse. Marathon runner, she is a long-distance athlete. She pushes her body to endure fatigue and effort as if to better sublimate herself until that precise second when, reaching the climax, the artist captures her in her flight. Immortalized in a moment of ultimate grace where the force of the stopped movement has blossomed into extreme eroticism, it comes to offer itself to our contemplation, both strong and indomitable but made vulnerable by this stolen moment, this revealed intimacy.

Philippe Hiquily loved women and to prove it he spent nearly 65 years of his life exploring their shapes and lines, playing with their sexual attributes or flirting with their sensual sweetness. His relationship with the fair sex was expressed above all through his work with metal. Physical, even muscular in the hammering of the sheets; ardent and carnal in the welds that traced the anatomy; tender and lascivious in the polishing of the volumes; subtle and demanding in the arrangement of forms and balances, he knew how to bring out from a few plates of iron, brass or steel compositions full of charm, poetry and humor.

Through his sculptures we perceive concerns close to those that had guided the artistic practice of Calder, an artist he admired infinitely. Capturing movement in all its aspects, from dangerously balanced mobiles to the most monumental stabiles, defying gravity or developing complex mechanisms. Everything, in the end, is built to simply capture the elusive.

Hiquily's work, like its creator, is powerful and discreet, and the Marathonienne, more than any of his sculptures, has become a true icon of the noble and quiet intensity of his art. . In this 2.75 meter edition, however, pays homage to the imposing dimensions, lines and curves of the original 6 meter sculpture that Hiquily made for the Sports Center of the city of Vitry sur Seine in 1981.

Exhibition
2012 MARATHONIENNE & ÉPICURIENNE (5M), Saint-Germain-Des-Près, Paris, France
1981 MARATHONIENNE 6M, Vitry sur Seine, France

Auction
2019 Marathoner 168cm sold 262,000 Euros, Chrisite's, Paris

Series TV
2018 Billons Season 3, Bobby Axelrod's house

The sculpture Marathonienne is presented at the series "Billions".

This work is listed in the Catalogue Raisonné of the artist (page 269) under the reference number: 364 - 81.Scu.Mar.Ed.Ac.350

Graduated from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in 1953, Philippe Hiquily quickly detached himself from academic sculpture to develop his technique of «direct metal» inspired by Julio González. More than half century, he explored the work of metal (iron, brass, bronze, steel) in all its forms and he develops a unique sculptural language around his favorite themes of women, balance and movement.

Like Alexander Calder, whom he admired, Philippe HIQUILY is also famous for his monumental sculptures that have shaped the French and international public space since the 1960s, such as his Girouettes (Weather Vanes) designed for a 12m high project in Marbella (Spain) and Shanghai (China) or his legendary 6 meters Marathonienne set up in 1981 in Vitry sur Seine.

Hiquily has created a protective image of woman - dual, enigmatic, universal and experimented for a time with motorized, moving sculptures. It identifies his unified journey with an emblematic work that places
Hiquily among the great creators of the second half of the 20th century.

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