W.A. Lovegrove
Born in New York 1902, died in Lausanne, Switzerland 1970
Leaping shoal of swordfishes (or marlins)
Art Deco bronze sculpture with black patina
Signed and foundry stamp «Susse Fres Edts Paris»
Circa 1940
Condition: minor patina loss
31.2 cm x 72.4 cm (28" 1/2 x 12" 1/4)
William A. Lovegrove was an artist with a graduate degree from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Sorbonne and the Ecole du Louvre and a diplomat who enlisted in the army in 1942.
He was one of the Monuments Men - those over-the-hill art scholars, historians, architects and other experts forming a unit to retrieve as many of the stolen masterpieces as possible.
Based in Europe  he worked with the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives; the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in conjunction with the Recovery Commission; in 1946, he organized the exhibition Les Chefs-d'œuvre des Collections Privées Françaises Retrouvés en Allemagne, in Paris (for which he received the Légion d'Honneur); he was head of museums and libraries for the Allied Military Government for Stuttgart from 1948 to 1949. Since then he worked for the U.S.A. government as a cultural attaché in places around the world, Cairo, Athens, Washington and Vienna.