Olga Fisch, Carpet of the Caverna series, circa 1950 243 X 183 cm

Olga fisch (1901-1990), carpet of the caverna series, circa 1950 certainly one of olga fisch's most impressive carpet artworks. Signed and original label on the back, circa 1950 243 X 183 cm. (very good condition) for a comparable model, see christie's sale. New york of 26 november 2013 expert: mr. Noël. Deirmendjian sales record for olga fisch carpets dimension 411x312 cm sold for 25, 000. Olga fisch was born in hungary and fled the nazis to settle in quito, ecuador, in 1939, where she established a workshop guiding local artisans to produce some of the most remarkable modernist carpets ever made. In the 1950s, after the discovery of paleolithic cave paintings at lascaux in southwestern france, fisch created the caverna carpet series. In them we see a vital combination of ice age and modernist idioms. Cave paintings were an important and powerful point of reference for post-war european writers and artists such as jean-paul sartre, alberto giacometti and jean dubuffet. These artists, especially in france, wanted to strip the past to find something universal, consciously impregnating their work with prehistoric resonances and drawing inspiration from indigenous or humble sources to transcend the recent past. Georges bataille, in a 1955 monograph on lascaux's paintings, famously wrote: "resolutely, decisively, man has torn himself away from the animal condition and from 'virility', and this abrupt and most important transition has left an image of himself blazing on the rock in this cave. The miracle happened in lascaux. Fisch's caverna series translates this post-war tradition into the textile arts, incorporating copies of drawings of cave animals with its own illustrations into living, modern motifs.