Female Torso - Marcel Gimond (1894-1961)

A very nuanced brownchamotte sandstone sculpture
raised on a green marble base
signed on the arm with the monogram " MG "
executed at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres (withthe Sèvres stamp)

France
1929 

total height 56 cm
width 21 cm
depth 20 cm 

After a model by Marcel Gimond, this bust was made in1929 by Georges Serré at the Manufacture de Sèvres. 

Reproduced in "Sculpteurs nouveaux, Marcel Gimond",Paul Fierens, Nrf, 1930, p°57.

Biographies :
Marcel Gimond (1894-1961) was aFrench sculptor. He studied in Lyon, then at the School of Fine Arts in Lyonwhere he graduated in 1917. Finally he arrived in Paris the same year andsettled in Marly-Le-Roi. Student of Aristide Maillol, he also met Raoul Dufyand Auguste Renoir. Gimond worked with Maillol until 1920, and left him tosettle in Paris and regain his independence. He then moved into Renoir's formerstudio, made available by Jean Renoir. He exhibited at the Salon desIndépendants and the Salon d'Automne in 1922. In 1940, Gimond left Paris tosettle in the South zone, in Lyon, then in Aix en Provence; He spent hissummers at Saint-Félicien, at the house of poet Charles Forot.At theLiberation, in 1944, he returned to Paris and his workshop rue Ordener, he leftonly a few months before his death. From 1946 to 1960, he directed a workshopat the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. MarcelGimond was known for his busts of political and artistic personalities. Healso owed two bas-reliefs located in the lobby of the newspaper "L'Humanité", in tribute to MarcelCachin and Gabriel Péri. 

Georges Serré (1889-1956) was a French ceramist. He worked at theSèvres factory until 1914, when he was mobilized to go to war. He then went toIndochina where he taught ceramics at the art school of Bien-hoa for fiveyears. On his return to France, he moved to Sèvres, rue Brongniart, butencountered difficulties in producing his works, until the intervention of theceramist Emile Decoeur who obtained him help to build an oven for firing hisceramics. It was Georges Rouard and his gallery located on avenue de l'Opéra inParis, who had noticed him at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorativeand Industrial Arts of 1925, which presented him during his "exhibitionsof contemporary French artisans".Georges Serré's taste for these sandstones came to him, among otherthings, from Khmer sculptures, including a Buddha's head that he had broughtback from Saigon, which had seduced him so much in Indochina. He liked the warmtone as much as the rough consistency pushing him to create a material thatwould be close to it. It was, at Rouard's request, that he producedreproductions of modern sculptures, including this bust by Marcel Gimond.