Seated Couple - Louis-Eugene DEJEAN (1872-1953)

A rare bronze group with a nuanced dark brown patina
signed "Louis Dejean"
cast by "Alexis Rudier fondeur" (with a barely legible foundry mark )
and inscribed "09" lower back

France
1909
height 47 cm
width 23 cm
depth 23 cm

Biography :
Louis Dejean (1872-1953) was a French sculptor. After being a student at the School of Decorative Arts, he entered the studio of Antonin Carlès where he learned his job as a sculptor as a practitioner. He also occupied this position with Rodin until a disagreement about the "Balzac" separated them (1909). Although his career in Carlès' studio had made him a meticulous practitioner, his work with Rodin allowed him to tackle volumes with greater force. He first developed a precise and decorative work on statuettes, inspired by "Tanagras", seen during his visits to the Louvre. They characterize the "Parisiennes" of the 1900s. He exhibited them successfully at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1899.

But Dejean returned to a more monumental sculpture he made in his large studio in Neuilly. "Motherhood" (1910) indicates an evolution towards a wider art that rejects the picturesque to better seek the fullness of form. This trend was even more marked in the following works: "Boxer at rest", "Sitting Woman", "Narcissus", "Young Wrestler" and various other figures including the torso of a woman exposed at the Tuileries Salon of 1926. Dejean received an order in 1933, from "La Paix", renamed "L'Accueil", large bronze figure erected for the first class dining room of the liner Normandie. In 1937, he directed for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris one of the four Nymphs lying around the basin. He affirmed here his taste for the beauty of bodies, busts and naked in particular.

Dejean was also known as one of the members of the so-called "Schnegg Band" which included, among others, former Rodin collaborators: Bourdelle, Despiau, Wlérick, Pompon, Drivier, Halou, Brand, Malfray, Niederhausern-Rodo, Cavaillon, Arnold, Jane Poupelet, Yvonne Serruys ... Influenced at first by Rodin, Dejean moved away from the lyricism of the master to move towards a quiet sculpture, serene, with plain shapes, in search of simple volumes and balanced compositions.