germaine richier - Galerie Perrotin

GERMAINE RICHIER
February 27 - April 12, 2014
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
Mondays by appointment
909 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021
+1 212 772 2004
+1 212 812 2902
View of the exhibition Germaine Richier at Dominique Lévy Gallery and Galerie Perrotin, New York, from February 27 to April 12, 2014.
GERMAINE RICHIER
February 27 – April 12, 2014
Dominique Lévy Gallery / Galerie Perrotin, New York
Dominique Lévy and Galerie Perrotin jointly present the first
American exhibition in half a century devoted to the work of
seminal postwar French artist Germaine Richier (1902 – 1959).
the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, as well as
“Giacometti, Marini, Richier: The Tortured Figure” at Musée
Cantonal des Beaux-Arts of Lausanne in Switzerland.
On view in the landmark building at 909 Madison Avenue
where both galleries reside, Germaine Richier presents
more than forty important sculptures ranging from early
torsos and figures, to startling hybrids of humans crossed
with bats, toads, spiders, and vegetal organisms, that
brought the artist international recognition before her untimely death at the age of 57. The exhibition traces the
evolution of a defiantly independent vision and the artistic
trajectory of a woman whose life was imprinted indelibly by
two World Wars; who began her career in the studio of
Antoine Bourdelle; and who went on to break convention
and leave a vivid mark on the history of Modern art.
Germaine Richier has been organized with the support of
the artist’s family. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully
illustrated catalogue, one of the first scholarly studies of the
artist’s work ever published in the United States. Researched
and edited by Jennifer Buonocore and Clara Touboul, with
support from Daphné Valroff, the book features original
essays by Sarah Wilson and Anna Swinbourne. It also reproduces a 1953 text by André Pieyre de Mandiargues,
never before translated in English, as well as important archival documents from the Germaine Richier Estate.
The exhibition complements Richier’s sculptures with a
selection of photographs by her contemporary Brassaï, who
documented the artist’s studio and captured the defying
power of her work. Brassaï’s portraits of Richier convey the
unique magical chaos of her environment. As depicted in
these photographs, Richier surrounded herself with a wild
jumble of sculptures spanning different periods of her output
-- a veritable sculptural forest that has inspired the installation design for Germaine Richier in New York. Visitors to
the exhibition discover there a deliberately dense, nonchronological, and eccentric installation, where sculptures
and photographs overflow into the stairwells and draw
visitors on a journey into the artist’s world.
Germaine Richier will remain on view through April 12th
on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in the same neighborhood
where the artist’s first American solo exhibition was presented to broad critical acclaim in 1957 at the legendary
Martha Jackson Gallery. The exhibition coincides with a
major retrospective of Richier’s work currently on view at
In addition to works coming from the Germaine Richier
Estate, loans from American and European private collections contribute to an in-depth examination of Richier’s
oeuvre, which defies easy classification. Germaine Richier
explores the daring ways in which Richier’s art bridges the
tradition of classical figurative sculpture with an idiosyncratic visual language born of an anguished, searching, and,
ultimately, spiritual post-World War psyche.
The Exhibition
Germaine Richier reintroduces American audiences to one
of the first female sculptors ever to receive critical acclaim
within her lifetime – an artist who exhibited at five consecutive Venice Biennales beginning in 1948, was featured at
the first São Paulo Biennale in 1951, and was avidly collected in Europe and the United States.
Born in 1902 in Grans, France, Germaine Richier moved
to Paris in 1926 and became a student in the studio of
Antoine Bourdelle, with whom she worked until his death
in 1929. Like Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin, and
View of the exhibition Germaine Richier at Dominique Lévy Gallery and Galerie Perrotin, New York, from February 27 to April 12, 2014.
Alberto Giacometti (who also studied in Bourdelle’s studio),
Richier explored the tradition of bronze figurative sculpture
but charted a new territory beyond that tradition. Inspired by
the creatures she encountered in the stories of the Provence
region where the artist grew up, and deeply influenced by
her first visit to the ruins of Pompeii in 1935, Richier’s work
mixes qualities of both the classical and the mythical. She
was enraptured by the natural world. The idea of reverse
evolution – the devolution of the human mammal to bat, to
bird, and to insect – was a powerful metaphor not only for
nature but for the regression of civilization in the aftermath
of the atrocities of the war years.
In Germaine Richier, the artist’s career is traced by major
works of each period. Among early sculptures on view are
the highly classical standing figures of “Loretto” (1934) and
“Nu ou La Grosse” (1939), darkly patinated bronzes that
express the prerogatives of classicism – balance and harmony – and reflect the influence of Richier’s mentors. As the
exhibition moves into the 1940s, visitors find Richier coming
more fully into her own, expressing two imperatives that shape
her work until her death – the challenge of imbuing static
materials with movement, and the wildness of nature experienced in her Provencal childhood. Modest in scale but astonishingly alive, “La Mante, moyenne” (1946) is neither mantis
nor man, crouched and gesturing. The figure of “La Forêt”
(1946) is a perfect illustration of Richier’s link to her roots: In
a letter to her mother that year, Richier asked her family to
send to Paris a bundle of specific branches for her to use
instead of wires in the process of making this sculpture.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Richier’s work manifests both a heightened mysticism and technical adventurousness. In a series of works inspired by Miguel de
Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the artist’s figures become more
expressionistic and elongated, in stances slightly askew,
with patinas of a wider color range. Works such as “Don
Quichotte à la lance” (1949) and “Don Quichotte” (1950-51)
suggest a new phase.
In the 1950s, the artist’s figures underwent a remarkable
transformation as she experimented with hybrids and untried
geometries, even while remaining connected to her own training. “La Tauromachie” (1953) depicts a figure familiar to the
bullrings of the Camargue region in the South of France. In
this sculpture Richier skillfully shifts the horseman’s staff to
one side, throwing off symmetry and imbuing the tableaux with
a unique vitality. During the first half of the 50s, Richier created many sculptures depicting seated women; on view in the
exhibition, “L’Eau” (1953-54) is the last of a series in which
female forms are completely human. The type of Ur-Woman
depicted in this sculpture subsequently gives way to the artist’s
signature human-insect hybrids, astonishing figures in which
Richier’s dual interests in nature and classicism, instinct and
technique, would merge powerfully. “La Sauterelle, grande”
(1955-1956) is a prime example from this period.
The latest work on view in Germaine Richier is the large
five-sculpture grouping “L’Echiquier, grand” (1959), which
marks the apogee of the artist’s career. Coursing through
the exhibition is vivid evidence of Richier’s rich variety of
patinas, which range from dark tones to gold finishes, rendering animated effects. Her unconventional use of color –
perhaps one of the most extraordinary and unexpected aspects of Germaine Richier’s work – is exemplified in the late
painted bronze “Le Couple peint” (1959).
The work of Germaine Richier is represented in numerous
public collections including the Tate Gallery, London, UK;
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US; Musée
National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; Louisiana Museum
of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Kunstmuseum Bern,
Bern, Switzerland; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Venice, Italy.
“La Tauromachie” 1953, Natural polished bronze, 45 11/16 x 21 1/4 x 39 3/4 in / 116 x 54 x 101 cm
“La Spirale” 1957, Polished natural bronze, 113 3/8 x 22 1/2 x 22 1/2 in / 288 x 57 x 57 cm
The human image has never been forgotten in the arts. The sculptor is not
protected from the crises that have jolted modern art, but in sculpture, an art of
slower evolution according to some, the disruptions are of a different nature. In
some way it is sculpture that knew how to preserve the human face from these
upheavals (in fact, today’s sculptors do not renounce the making of busts). The
face: that is to say, an entity, a whole of expressions and gestures brought into
accord with the form. This form, clearly, evolved to such a point that I would call
it “hybrid.” Whence come the dangers that threaten us through excess, and that
are tempered through measure.
As an art of measure, contemporary sculpture can and should erect and set up its
forms, not in pediments, but in front of monuments and in other public places. In
order to make our times and the public understand the works of today, sculpture
would have to take over the sites that — one asks why — have been denied it: large
public squares, gardens, theaters, buildings, stadiums. As long as sculpture is not
brought back into the “domain of man and woman,” into the places common to
humanity, its face will be as if it were disfigured.
What characterizes sculpture, in my opinion, is the way in which it renounces
the full, solid form. Holes and perforations conduct like flashes of lightning
into the material, which becomes organic and open, encircled on all sides, lit
up in and through the hollows. A form lives to the extent to which it does not
withdraw from expression. And we decidedly cannot conceal human expression in the drama of our time.
— Germaine Richier, Paris, 1959
“Le Grain” 1955, Dark patinated bronze, 56 7/8 x 12 13/16 x 12 1/4 in / 145 x 35 x 34 cm
View of the exhibition Germaine Richier at Dominique Lévy Gallery and Galerie Perrotin, New York, from February 27 to April 12, 2014.
Germaine Richier (b.1902 Grans, France, d.1959 Montpellier, France)
SOLO SHOWS (selection)
2014
2013
2007
1997
1996
1993
1988
1964
1963
1959
1958
1957
1956
1955
1954
1951
1948
1947
1946
1937
1934
Germaine Richier, Dominique Lévy Gallery and Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA
Germaine Richier: Rétrospective, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
Germaine Richier, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy
Germaine Richier, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
Germaine Richier: Rétrospective, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul, France
Olivier Debré. 50 tableaux pour un timbre. Découverte d’une autre édition artistique de la Poste: Germaine Richier,
timbre Europa 1993, Musée de la Poste, Paris, France
Germaine Richier, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Copenhagen, Denmark
Germaine Richier, Musée Réattu, Arles, France
Hommage à Germaine Richier, Musée Grimaldi-Chateau, Antibes; Germaine Richier, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland;
Germaine Richier, Galerie Creuzevault, Paris, France
Germaine Richier, Musée Grimaldi, Antibes, France; Germaine Richier, Appel and Paolozzi, Martha Jackson Gallery,
New York, USA; Sculpture by Germaine Richier, University School of Fine and Applied Arts, Boston, USA
Sculpture by Germaine Richier, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; Germaine Richier, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland
Germaine Richier, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, USA
Germaine Richier, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; Germaine Richier, Galerie Berggruen, Paris, France
Germaine Richier, Hanover Gallery, London, UK
Viera da Silva, Germaine Richier, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Germaine Richier, Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago, USA
Die Plastiksammlung Werner Bär, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland
Germaine Richier, Galerie Maeght, Paris, France
Sculptures of Germaine Richier, Engraving Studio of Roger Lacourière, Anglo-French Art Center, London, UK
Germaine Richier, Galerie Georges Moos, Geneva, Switzerland
Méditerranée, Pavillon Languedoc Méditerranéen, Paris, France
Germaine Richier, Galerie Max Kaganovitch, Paris, France
All Artworks: © Germaine Richier, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2014