Jean Osouf (1898-1996) - Lot 218

Jean Osouf (1898-1996) Female torso: Coralie, circa 1935 Terracotta proof Label under wooden base (Skulptör fransmannan Jan Osouf. Flickan är Coralli, hans modell och älskarinna. Enligt Ambra Häkansson och Göste Olson, den senare chef för Svensk-Franska konstgalleriet i Stockholm. Carl Norman) (French sculptor Jean Osouf. The girl is Coralie, his model and mistress. According to Ambra Häkansson and Göste Olson, the latter director of the Franco-Swedish art gallery in Stockholm. Carl Norman) 28 x 11.5 x 7 cm Bibliography : - Jean Osouf, 1898-1996, cat. exp. Paris, galerie Martel-Greiner (2000), Paris, Galerie Martel-Greiner, 2000. A wine merchant in the Marne region of France, a bookseller in Paris and then a soldier in the First World War, Jean Osouf was a self-taught modeler of small figurines. His encounters with sculptors Adam Fischer and Aristide Maillol convinced him to join the Académie Scandinave de Paris, where Charles Despiau taught. It was finally in 1928, at the age of 30, that he decided to devote himself fully to sculpture. It was at the 1937 Universal Exhibition, where he presented his statue L'Éveil, influenced by medieval art, that Osouf met with critical success. He exhibited his clay and plaster sculptures in France and abroad. His busts of Coralie and Jean-Claude, his nudes such as Les Baigneuses and his sacred art statues such as La Vierge, toured Europe, the United States, Mexico and Scandinavia, where Osouf's work was particularly appreciated. This recognition led him to become professor of sculpture at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and to join the juries of the École des Beaux-Arts competitions. He has won several sculpture prizes, including the Prix Paul-Louis Weiller (1974). Together with Jean Carton, Paul Cornet, Marcel Damboise, Léopold Kretz and others, they founded the Groupe des Neuf under the aegis of Juliette Darle in 1963. For around ten years, between 1935 and 1945, Coralie posed for Osouf. He created a large number of sculptures in which he declined the attitudes and expressions of his model: figures of Naïade, Baigneuse, Jeune fille, Buste de Coralie dit Petite Reine, Buste de Coralie couronnée, Masque de Coralie dit Épiphanie... Le Torse féminin : Coralie belongs to this series. Our terracotta proof was presented in Stockholm in 1938 at the Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet.