Woodrow Wollesen

About Artist:

British artist Margaret Rey was born on August 10, 1911. She died on July 6, 2010, aged 98. Though Margaret Reys career as a potter was all too brief, her pots of the late 1930s are among the best of 20th-century studio ceramics, and her work has been acquired by several museums including the Victoria & Albert.

Rey entered the Royal College of Art in 1932 as a student in the Design Department. William Staite Murray, an important artist of the interwar years, was head of the pottery course, and what was happening there seemed much more exciting. It wasn?t long before Rey made the switch.

Success came fairly quickly for Rey and she was regularly in group exhibitions. In 1937 there were two important exhibitions: the first was a show of many of the best young British potters at the Brygos Gallery in Bond Street. The second, at the Galerie Rouard in Paris, was with such luminaries as Murray, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Charles Vyse and William B. Dalton.

Reviews of these exhibitions consistently praised her work. One critic wrote: Margaret Rey deserves the highest honours. She is daringly fertile in ideas, commanding in technical authority and has a sense of colour denied to her colleagues.

Charles Marriott, the influential Times critic, singled out her pot Gold Earth (now in the Buckinghamshire County Museum Collection) as the finest piece in the exhibition. The high point of her potting career came in 1938 with a major solo exhibition at the Brygos Gallery. There were more than 250 pieces, showing the full range of her work, and purchasers included the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Contemporary Art Society and many major collectors most notably George Eumorfopoulos and the Dean Eric Milner-White.

In 1960 she bought a studio at Forest Green in Surrey and began painting and making sculpture. She worked quite successfully well into her nineties.

About Artwork:

Antique Lady Justice Statue 21" high, 100% terracotta (fired and finished in Bronze Patina) (no metal) statute

Hand Crafted and Sculpted by Margaret Rey, The Studio, Sculptors Ltd, England circa 1972 (original certification to accompany)

For the truly discriminating art knowledgeable - museum quality and grade Notice the extremely fine craftsmanship, exquisite details unmatched in any other version ever sculpted in clay/terracotta. Unlike every other depiction of Lady Justice regardless of medium (especially clay or ceramic) there has been a continuing inability to properly portray genuine femininity into the prior portrayal versus the usual versions tilting to Amazon warrior images with often prominent muscular features/ even masculinity.

This particular creation uniquely portrays and captures a perfect balance the inherent tensions of a calm, caring compassionate feeling lady of genuine grace, charm, elegance, poise as well as a protector/warrior maiden able to blindly and fairly dispense justice with the abilities to bring swift and immediate accountability for failed adherence.

The unprecedented balance in contrasts are evident throughout from every perspective and within every detail: *Notice the sleek and attractively lean silhouette accentuated by the sheer clinging garb reflecting every feature of her graceful, elegant body structure, classically and slightly exposing breast features, sharp facial feature denoting both calm, compassion and as well deep strength of character; * The exquisite detail in every minute aspect of the Lady, her garb rarely if ever captured in any other statue and presentation; * The flow and airiness of the garb (all sides) as if affected by a whispering breeze with a distinct curved opening of her robe at the back (not present in any other renditions) exposing a sleek, smooth attractive contour of youthful femininity; * Deliberately uneven bronze patina coloration reflecting the smooth elegance existing alongside the raw, rustic, earthy tint below showing subdued strength and force underneath the femininity always poised for release as required or needed; * The delicate features of the shoulders, arms (even down to the legs and feet), and especially the elongated fingers reflecting again the femininity and grace of the Lady:

* In contrast notice the relaxed tenor of the entire body structure denoting calm strength while the hand (not grasping with rigidity) easily molding with the sword tilted in ready position for instant applications ( in real combat (all forms even with weapons) there exist justified fear of any opponent fully relaxed, focused, and at ease ready to deliver a deadly strike with precision, force, and quickness)