Charles AUFFRET (1929-2001) - Lot 81

Charles AUFFRET (1929-2001) Femme à la toilette, second version, circa 1990 Bronze proof, n°1/8. Bodin lost-wax casting. Foundry stamp (on the edge of the terrace). Signed and numbered (on the terrace): CH. AUFFRET. 55 x 36 x 22 cm PROVENANCE: artist's studio La Femme à la toilette marks the beginning of Charles Auffret's career and reveals him to the public. It already displays all the characteristics of his style: an "impressionist" sculpture with a very tender view of women. With this work, Charles Auffret was awarded the Prix Godard in 1964. The jury, made up of independent sculptors known as the Groupe des Neuf, rewarded him with a bronze cast of his sculpture. At the end of his life, Charles Auffret enlarged his Femme à la toilette and reworked it into a second version, 56 cm high. Compared with the 1964 work, this second version reflects a search for simplification (the openings under the shoulder and at the raised foot have been closed). After immersing himself in Burgundian sculpture while studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, Charles Auffret joined the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1947. There, he studied monumental art. He took monumental art classes in Alfred Jeanniot's studio and attended those of Marcel Gimond. In 1958, he set up his studio in the Buttes-Chaumont district and discovered the work of Charles Despiau, Robert Wlérick and Charles Malfray. In 1964, he was awarded the Prix du Groupe des Neuf. Following in the footsteps of the Schnegg Gang half a century earlier, the Groupe des Neuf was formed in 1963. Jean Carton, Raymond Martin, Marcel Damboise, Paul Cornet, Raymond Corbin, Léon Indenbaum, Léopold Kretz, Gunnar Nilsson and Jean Osouf, heirs to Wlérick, Despiau, Malfray and Gimond, united around a common conception of sculpture, reaffirming their direct filiation with so-called "independent" sculpture. The following year, winner of the Paul Ricard Foundation's International Sculpture Prize, Charles Auffret was invited to take up residence on the Ile de Bendor with his sculptor wife Arlette Ginioux. There, he erected a monumental sculpture known as L'Éveil, a major work. He took part in numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, and taught drawing at the Malebranche academy and the Beaux-Arts de Reims before being appointed professor at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. After his death, several retrospectives paid tribute to his work: the Musée Mainssieux in Voiron, the Villa Médicis in Rome and the Musée Despiau-Wlérick in Mont-de-Marsan.