Boris Lovet-Lorski
Heroica, 1965
Cast bronze
Gift of Mrs. Melpo Niarchos
Boris Lovet-Lorski found the nude human body inspiring. He found it so inspiring that he even lived briefly as a nudist, but ultimately found other people’s clothing annoyingly distracting, and went back to dressing normally. Unsurprisingly, then, Heroica is one of many female nudes the artist produced over the course of his career. Heroica, however, is somewhat unusual for one of Lovet-Lorski’s bronzes, as he generally preferred his surfaces smooth and reflective, or as he described them, “like polished silk.” The rough surface texture may be due to the work’s subject. As you may have sussed out, the Latin term Heroica translates to “heroic” or “epic” in English.
The title Heroica is not the only Classical element that inspired Lovet-Lorski in this work. Heroica is an example of a “partial figure,” meaning that the artist did not include the figure’s limbs. The partial figure comes from Western artists’ admiration of Greek and Roman sculpture from antiquity, which often did not survive with limbs intact. You might be able to think of an example, like the famous Venus de Milo, a nude woman missing both of her arms. Lovet-Lorski and other modern artists felt that limbs were unnecessary to make a work complete and expressive.