Influenced by Oksana Zhnipruk's Seated Ballerina, Jeff Koons’ Seated Ballerina (Wood) presents a blonde dancer in a blue tutu, who adjusts her matching slipper while seated atop a fancifully decorated stool.
Oksana Zhnikrup was a Ukrainian sculptor and painter and a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. She was born in 1931 in the city of Chita and studied at the Sculpture Department of the Odessa Art College before working at the Baranovksy Porcelain Factory.
In 1955 she took a job as a sculptor at The Kiev Experimental Ceramic-Art Factory where she created a number of works, many of them featuring female characters and including ‘Balerina Lenochka. She passed away in 1993. Her works have appeared at the Republican Exhibitions of Decorative Art and in international exhibitions in Chicago, Zagreb, Turkey and Canada. Several of her sculptures are kept in the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Arts.
Oksana Zhnikrup, Seated Ballerina
The ballerina, with the elegance of her long neck as she gazes downwards, her outstretched leg, is related to the Koons' Antiquity series, which revisits themes of eros, libido, fertility and feminine beauty as represented throughout the artist historical canon. In his depictions of ballerinas.
Main Image: Jeff Koons, Seated Ballerina (Wood), Courtesy Phillips, estimate $ 30.000 - 50.000; Auction dates October 21-22