Edmond MOIRIGNOT (1913-2002) - The Model

Very fine proof in bronze with bluish-black patina
Lost-wax casting by A. Valsuani - Bears the founder's stamp
Signed on the Terrace "E. Moirignot" on the Terrace
Numbered 1/6
Artist's stamp on the terrace
Cast before 1965
Height : 50,5 cm

Bibliography: Model listed in the artist's catalog raisonné under no. 124 - Page 60


Biography
Edmond MOIRIGNOT (1913-2002)

"Alongside Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier, the sculptor Edmond Moirignot (1913-2002) belongs to a family of sculptors who, after the war, renewed figurative sculpture to express man and his drama with new intensity. His work affirms his faith in the being who thinks and loves. The soul is his center of gravity, and each sculpture creates an infinite space. It expresses the meditation, even melancholy, of those who question time, life, the world and nothingness. It's a universe that seems to come from the depths of the ages, yet is completely of our time.
Born on October 21, 1913His father ran a silk flower factory.His mother, Flore, was an employee.
His mother's family were all ivory carvers in Dieppe: a great fascination for Edmond.At the age of 15, he apprenticed with his maternal uncle to learn ivory carving, against his father's advice. He developed a passion for direct carvingAt the beginning of the 20th century, Africa was being discovered and fascinated.Artists saw African art only as a source of inspiration for simplified forms, a stylistic element that would lead to Art Deco sculpture.
Others, like Moirignot, perceived the sacred, spiritual energy of her fetishes.
At the age of 18, and against his father's wishes, he entered the Beaux-arts, studying under Boucher, a teacher who allowed his students to blossom and find their own personality.He took on a series of odd jobs to survive and continue his apprenticeship and his art.
Morning: student at the Beaux-arts, afternoon: carves ivory at his uncle's.
Main influences: Carpeaux, Claudel and Rodin.Later Giacometti, Germaine Richier.
Other influences: Greece (regular visits thanks to his friend Papas) - Baudelaire (many sculptures inspired by his poems).

1939 to 1945: Mobilized. Served in combat, then 5 years as a prisoner of war in Germany. He practises drawing and watercolour every day.After the war, first nervous breakdown.1945: meets Marguerite.
"In the exaltation of his nervous nature, he tracks down possible illuminations, and then above all that light, the physical light that clings to the asperities of his bronzes, the inner light above all, like a never-extinguished hope, refusing the dark night in which the world seems to shut itself in, at the heart of matter, his human part. He knows that the artist does not describe what he sees, but the way he sees it and the emotion that this vision awakens. For Moirignot, form is at the service of this spirit, which is why in the 1950s he began to liberate the body from its carnal weight to express only the essential: love, joy, innocence, free, light, spiritual silhouettes. The whole being concentrated in its raison d'être, its very essence, and always that harmony, that delicacy that makes you forget all traces of labor."
1950: First solo exhibition
Very fertile 1955-1985 period;
Moirignot was one of the few artists who practiced both modeling and direct carving (mastered early on through ivory work).
During this period, he spent every afternoon drawing nudes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.The perfect knowledge of the body he gained from this daily exercise would find its way into his sculpture.Between 1963 and 1983, he taught sculpture at a school on Boulevard Montparnasse.
"Despite successive bouts of depression and the manic-depressive state that was to haunt Moirignot unceasingly, the artist believed in beauty, in its saving power, in the hope it implies, in the faith in man it implies".(Claude Jeancolas)
From 1960 onwards, Marguerite's psychological problems began to affect him more and more: he became manic-depressive. Life for Marguerite became increasingly difficult, and he became nervous, gloomy and unbearable.As a result of his health problems, he divorced his wife in 1990, moved into his studio and began to associate with disreputable strangers and women of ill repute, but remained very active in his work.

1991: tragedy: his daughter Francine dies of anorexia. He never recovered.1993: his mental health deteriorates: he is diagnosed with schizophrenia.
1994: appointment of a curator with his consent.
Died on July 2, 2002, shortly after his son (who died in April 2002 in a fall in the mountains).