On 13 May, the INTERNATIONAL ART SALE Auction House inaugurates its prestigious new headquarters in Via Giacomo Puccini, 3 Milan (L.go Cairoli) by presenting the next sale of "Jewels and Watches" which will disperse around 300 lots and a selection of gold sculptures, unique in their kind both for the preciousness of the metal used and for the particularity of the subjects, created by the Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck .
Paul Van Hoeydonck is absolutely the only artist in the world who has executed a work depicting a small stylized astronaut about 8 cm high, deposited on the moon by members of the Apollo 15 space mission.
There are several works in the auction by this artist, born in 1925 in Antwerp. Deported to Germany during the Second World War, he returned to his hometown, graduating in History of Art and Archaeology. In 1952 he had his first solo exhibitions at the Buyle gallery in Antwerp, the Unicum Gallery in Bruges and the Aucheval de Verre Gallery in Brussels. In 1961 he exhibited in Paris and New York, in 1963 in Tokyo, Belgium, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Many exhibitions all over the world followed, in Italy he exhibited in 1972 in Milan (Palazzo Reale) in Faenza in Padua and again in Milan (Museo Poldi Pezzoli and at the Rotonda della Besana).
In 1973, at the Modern Art studio in Milan, he presented a series of "precious" sculptures depicting stylized astronauts.
Paul Van Hoeydonck's most famous work is entitled Fallen astronaut (Fallen Spaceman). It is an aluminum sculpture, 8,5 cm high, which represents the stylized figure of an astronaut, dressed in a space suit. The small statue was left on the moon's surface by members of the Apollo 15 expedition and until today it is the only artifact of an artistic type that man has left outside the earth's surface.
The idea for the statuette came toastronaut David Scott and the purpose was to commemorate the astronauts who had lost their lives during space missions.
The choice of material was made by the artist himself, as the aluminium, once it reached the lunar surface, could resist the strong lunar temperature ranges without deforming.
In the 1971 Fallen astronaut, was brought aboard Apollo 15, which had as members David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin. on August 2, 1971, during the last of the three excursions, a small copy of the Bible and the fallen Astronaut were left on a small crater in the south-western part of the Imbrium sea.
Next to the statue Scott placed a small metal plaque with the names (in alphabetical order) of fourteen deceased astronauts, eight Americans and two Soviets. The members of the space mission did not inform the Houston control center and gave their gesture a private and personal meaning, not an official one. The location of the statuette and the metal plate became known only during the press conference held at the end of the flight. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington asked Van Hoeydonck for a replica of the sculpture, which was delivered in April 1972.
In May 1972, the sculptor made other replicas of the statue (about twenty in all), many purchased by museums.
The same I create works with the same theme in gold and precious stones, in steel and plexiglass, white monochrome that will be auctioned on May 5th, all works that have remained until today in a single private collection. It will certainly be a unique opportunity to see objects never seen before in an auction, which is why the management of the auction house expects the presence of a vast "curious" public and given the "very low estimates: from approximately 1.000 to 9.000 euros estimate) it is not said that there is also… a lot of “liveliness” to win one of these extraordinary specimens.
