Sculpture
Germaine Richier French, 1902-1959
16 9/10 × 5 7/10 × 4 1/10 in
During her enforced stay in Switzerland, Germaine Richier walked in the Valais. The woods and the leaf in the hand of L'Homme-forêt were collected on this occasion, and L'Homme-forêt was probably the first work by the sculptor to benefit from these elements collected in nature. The result was so fruitful that Richier gradually built up a grammar of the places she had loved, asking her brother, for example, to send her an olive branch from his native region.
But Richier had nothing to do with a ready-made work: her additions were reworked with earth, uncovered and reshaped until they fitted perfectly into the whole. Perfectly? That was René de Solier's opinion: "The webbed hand of L'Homme-Forêt, this amphibious hand, is like a graft of the reverse side; proof of the unexpected evolution of any form, as soon as sculpture takes possession of space."
For his part, André Pieyre de Mandiargues literally found fauna in his flora: "Has the sylvan character of his work been sufficiently noted? Do you remember the Forest Man, extended by a woody arm, an accomplice of birds, hesitating between the human and the vegetable? Standing in the middle of a crossroads of high forest, under patches of light filtered by the sun, small solar discs, no monument could be found that joined the past to the present better than this brand new simulacrum of Priape".
(Text published in: Germaine Richier, Rétrospective, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, p. 55)
Provenance
Richard Gray Gallery, ChicagoPrivate collection, USA (acquired from the above in 1984)
Private collection, France
Expositions
2019 - 2020 Antibes, Musée Picasso; Scheveningen, Museum Beelden aan Zee, Germaine Richier, la magicienne, ill. p. 27 (another cast)1997 Berlin, Akademie der Künste, Germaine Richier, ill. n°23, pp. 88-891996 Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Germaine Richier, Rétrospective, ill. n°19, p. 541993 Londres, Tate Gallery, Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism, 1945-1955, ill. n°2301976 Tokyo, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Richier, ill. n°4 Osaka, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Richier, ill. n°41964 Arles, Musée Réattu, Germaine Richier, 1904-1959, ill. n° 41963 New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Modern Sculpture from the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Collection, ill. n°380 Zurich, Kunsthaus, Germaine Richier, 1904-1959, n°21, ill. n° 5, p.191959 Boston, University School of Fine and Applied Arts, Sculpture by Germaine Richier, ill. n°17 Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Sculpture in our time - collected by Joseph H. Hirshhorn, ill. n°193Literature
Françoise Guiter, "Germaine Richier, Vie et œuvre, Life and work", catalogue raisonné, Tome 1, Silvana Editoriale, 2024, pp. 478-479, #100 (Ill.)Collection Peggy Guggenheim, Germaine Richier, Vérone, 2006, ill. p. 69
Harry Bellet, "L'Homme-forêt, petit" in catalogue de l'exposition Germaine Richier, rétrospective, Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, 1996, p.54 et ill. p.214
Geneviève Breerette, "Les étranges créatures de Germaine Richier enfin rassemblées" in Le Monde, Paris, 17 avril 1996
Frances Morris, "Documentation" in catalogue de l'exposition Paris Post-War: Art and Existentialism, 1945-1955, Londres, Tate Gallery, 1993, p.229
Françoise Guiter, "Biographie" in catalogue de l'exposition Germaine Richier, Humlebaek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 1988, pp.19-21, 74-75, 108-109
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