TitleBali Boy and Fighting Cock
Artist
Malvina Hoffman
(1885 - 1966)
Date1928
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 37 1/2 × 20 × 16 in.
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 5, 1931
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number51-S
Label TextThis sculpture was first executed in life size and then in this reduced version. Hoffman had it cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry in Paris for presentation as her Academy diploma work. "Although not officially tolerated," Hoffman wrote in her book Heads and Tales, "the national sport of cockfighting [in Bali] still persists, and splendid specimens of cocks are bred and trained and carried about in bell-shaped baskets often placed in rows along the highway, to accustom the birds to passersby, and to the noise and confusion of crowds. In Bali the fighting cock wears only one spur, but this is five inches long and very sharp. At a recent combat one of the birds flew into the audience and drove his spur through the skull of an observer with fatal results."
n.d.
1960
1873