Robert Couturier

In the sculptor Robert Couturier there is an accuracy of gesture, a restraint which, perhaps, comes from his origins. Born in 1905, into a family of millers from Angoumois, his youth was marked by a passion for drawing. In 1920, he entered the Estienne school in a lithography workshop which he left two years later. His meeting with Aristide Maillol in 1928 was decisive in his decision to become a sculptor. In 1937, he stood out at the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques with Le Jardinier on the Trocadéro esplanade and his fantastic models from the Pavilion of Elegance. But it was with the monument to Étienne Dolet in 1949 that Couturier freed himself from the classic form to establish himself as one of the representatives of the new figurative sculpture. His taste for conciseness led him very quickly towards a calligraphic form, which kept its power of suggestion intact. Appointed in 1946 to the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris, he taught there until 1962, when he joined the National School of Fine Arts.

23 x 30.5 cm

256 pages

300 black and white and color illustrations

ISBN: 978-2-9092-8350-0

Text in French only