Pompom - Grey Animals

Exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon and the Musée François Pompon in Saulieu, François Pompon (1855-1933) studied at the École des Arts décoratifs in 1870 and worked with Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel from 1890 to 1895. Pompon's sculptures are characterized by a style formed of smooth and simplified curves and an intuitive apprehension, a rejection of geometry, a taste for traditional materials. "I like sculpture without holes or shadows" he said, favoring light and unobstructed stones. In 1905, his choice of simplifying forms became definitive for his personal sculptures. He smoothed the sensitive surfaces and stripped his animal representations of all flourishes. When L'Ours appeared at the Salon d'Automne in 1922, the work contrasted with the agitated sculpture inherited from the 19th century in its modernism.