Robert Couturier (1905-2008) - "profile Of A Woman"

Bronze sculpture with nuanced brown patina. Lost-wax casting – Bears the foundry mark "Fonderie TEP GRECE". Numbered 1/6 on the back of the base. Signed "Couturier" on the base to the right. Circa 1998/2000. Dimensions: Height: 43 cm, Width: 10 cm, Depth: 8 cm. "Robert Couturier's sculpture is not ostentatious. It is a restrained, discreet art. For him, sculpting means creating with minimal means and offering the greatest freedom of interpretation." Biography: Robert Couturier, born May 2, 1905, in Angoulême, was a French sculptor who embraced art and design from a very young age. He trained in lithography at the École Estienne in Paris in 1920 but had to leave the school in 1922 after the death of his father. He continued his training in lithography in workshops around Paris. In 1928, Couturier met Aristide Maillol, who encouraged him to pursue sculpture. Maillol appreciated the "mal-foutu" (roughly made) quality of Couturier's work. He said, "You, Couturier, in the 'mal-foutu' style, will create something very good." This meeting marked the beginning of their friendship and Maillol's lasting influence on Couturier's early sculptures. In 1930, Couturier won the Blumenthal Prize and an award from the American Foundation for French Thought and Art. He co-founded the Salon de Mai and, in 1937, worked with the architect Émile Aillard on sculptures for the Pavilion of Elegance. The following year, he collaborated with Maillol on the famous sculpture "The River." He also signed the Rupture manifesto with Forces Nouvelles and Nouvelle Génération, groups advocating a return to traditional craftsmanship and artistic values. During World War II, Couturier was captured but escaped to the unoccupied zone. After the Liberation in 1946, he became a professor at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, a position he held until 1962, when he moved to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught until 1975. His first solo exhibition took place in London in 1947, followed by major exhibitions in Bern and Amsterdam in 1948 and 1949, which featured both older and newer sculptures. After the war, Couturier's style evolved, moving from solid forms to elongated lines. His work "Monument to Étienne Dolet" illustrates this change. Throughout the 1950s, he participated in numerous Biennales worldwide. In 2005, Couturier had a retrospective at the Dina Vierny Foundation-Maillol Museum in Paris, featuring his final sculptures made from recycled materials, which garnered him significant acclaim. He died on October 1, 2008. Today, 23 of his pieces are part of the inventory of the National Fund for Contemporary Art, with many of his works exhibited worldwide in cities such as Paris, Bayeux, Poitiers, Havana, Madrid, and Jerusalem. Couturier was a key figure in postwar French art, blending tradition and modernity and offering a new vision of the human form. His sculptures, primarily inspired by the voluptuous female figure, often featured simple lines that imbued his work with vibrancy and energy. Galerie Paris-Manaus