The Belgian sculptor Jan Dries boasted a lifelong fascination with light. Rising to fame in the 1950s, his principal mission was to create “pure forms” in which colour appeared to give way to luminosity, and the famously light-absorbing white Carrara marble was his preferred medium. This piece, titled Sourire, was made in 1969 and depicts a three-dimensional smile, deftly chiselled from slab of marble. It embodies Dries’ deeply philosophical determination that each of his pieces should be “an indefinable own being that has brought into being an a-dimensional space in time”.
