François-Émile POPINEAU (1887-1951) - Messaouda Dancer

Messaouda Dancer

Proof in heavily shaded brown bronze
Signed on the terrace
Fonte Susse Frères Éditeurs Paris
Circa 1925/30
Height: 39 cm

Biography :

François-Émile Popineau was born on October 2, 1887 in Saint Amand Montrond, Cher. From an early age, he showed a talent for drawing and modeling. After a brief initiation in Bourges, he moved to Paris, where he studied with Antoine Bourdelle and received advice from Aristide Maillol.
He made his debut at the S.N.B.A in 1912, where he exhibited academies of an already modern style. After the war, he returned to Paris and settled at 55, rue Lhomond, where he lived for the rest of his life, dividing his time between Paris and Bourges, where he taught sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts.
In 1922, he won a prize from the Compagnie de Navigation Mixte and spent some time in Algeria, from where he brought back a number of Oriental-inspired subjects, in particular Aïcha and Messaouda, which met with some success with the public.
In 1924, he received a travel grant from the Conseil Supérieur des Beaux-Arts, enabling him to return to North Africa.
In Paris, he exhibited regularly at the major Salons: S.N.B.A, Salon des Tuileries, Salon d'Automne and Indépendants.
He won a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in 1935 and the Prix Puvis de Chavannes for La Baigneuse in 1937.
After the 1914 war, he received a number of commissions for war memorials (in Bourges, Place de Verdun), before gradually developing a specialty in life-size female nudes for garden and fountain decoration, which proved very popular with the public.
For Bourges, he created a monumental frieze, a representation of La Danse (10.80 x 2.80 m), destined to decorate the Maison du Peuple (later Maison de la Culture) and still in place, as well as La Femme à la carpe installed in the middle of a pond at Prés Fichaux, from a Diane surprise for the same park around 1930.
After the 1939-1945 war, he received a final commission for the war memorial erected on the Place du 8 mai 1945, La France rompant ses chaînes (France breaking its chains).
He died of silicosis (a stonemason's disease) in Paris on March 29, 1951, and is buried in the Kremlin Bicêtre cemetery beneath a sculpture of his own, Figure d'un ange.

Very fine condition