Siméon Foucault, a forgotten sculptor. - Lot 0

Siméon Foucault, a forgotten sculptor. First Grand Prix de Rome in 1912 and collaborator of Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Siméon Foucault (1884 - 1923) remains an artist to be rediscovered, particularly through his original works, which borrow from both academicism and Art Deco. Born in Nantes on May 3, 1884, he was admitted to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1904. and studied under his teachers Louis-Ernest Barrias and Jules Coutan. His Chaldean Shepherd studying the stars won him the first Grand Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1912. A resident at the Villa Médicis since January 1913, his stay was cut short by the outbreak of war. Siméon Foucault was drafted into the 65th infantry regiment on August 3, 1914. Demobilized in 1919, he designed three war memorials, for the Lycée Clémenceau in Nantes and Rezé in 1922, and that of Saint-Nazaire in 1923. He then returned to the Villa Médicis to complete his studies and settled in Auteuil. Siméon Foucault was also part of the new impetus for the decorative arts in the early 1920s. Alongside Alfred Janniot, Pierre Turin and the Martel brothers, Foucault produced bronze plates for the "à fards" furniture series designed by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann from 1924. The sale dedicated to Siméon Foucault's studio includes two plaster casts depicting soldiers from the Great War, including a Senegalese skirmisher (lot 27). These models, with their strong impression of monumentality, echo the sculptor's commemorative creations. The artist's contribution to the Art Deco style is evident in two plaster models. plaster models. One is a ribbon-decorated hand mirror featuring a nude young woman (lot 15, signed behind the mirror) and the other is a jewelry box with a cross-legged seated woman on the lid (lot 16). Both of these creations, and the box in particular, were produced in gilded bronze by the Susse foundry. Other original creations oscillate between the academicism of his commemorative and the clean lines of Art Deco. This is the case for some of his works, such as his female figures wrapped in an ample gown (lots 13 and 14), his Femmes à la coupe (lots 19 to 21), on the borderline between homage to Antiquity and purely decorative verticality, or his Femmes dans les blés (lot 2) treated in the manner of a bas-relief. The reception of his work suffered from his premature death in 1923, his name rapidly becoming eclipsed by the many other artists who would contribute to the revival of decorative arts and statuary in the 1920s and 1930s. Enthusiasts will have the pleasure of discovering, or rediscovering, this uncommon artist thanks to this vacation, which offers enamelled prints, plasters, original studio terracottas, as well as the moulds used by the artist himself.