RICHIER Germaine

Germaine RICHIER - her artistic approach

The work of Germaine Richier (1902-1959) occupies a unique place in the history of 20th-century sculpture. Trained in the tradition of Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle, the artist established herself in just over twenty-five years - from the 1930s to her early death in 1959 - as profoundly original and radical.

Her art extended the achievements of classical craftsmanship and bronze statuary, while participating in the essential conquests of modern sculpture. After the war, her powerful and moving work forged a new image of man and woman, with complex and changing identities, playing on hybridizations with the animal and plant worlds.

. All my sculptures,” says Germaine Richier, ”even the most imaginative, always start from something real, an organic truth... In this way, you can step right into poetry...”.

During her lifetime, Germaine Richier achieved dazzling recognition: she was the first female sculptor to have an exhibition at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1956, and one of the few women artists to achieve international success in the 1940s and 1950s.

Commenting on the work of Germaine Richier, André Pieyre de Mandiargues writes: “She makes what passes through her hands scream. He adds, “She induces us to strange movements of the soul, she makes us glimpse fevers and fears that are primordial.”