René Iché

René Iché (January 21, 1897, Sallèles-d'Aude, France – December 23, 1954, Paris) was a 20th century French sculptor.

Life and work

René Iché fought in World War I, where he was injured and gassed. After the war, graduated in law, he changed his life and studied sculpture with Antoine Bourdelle and architecture with Auguste Perret. In 1927, his pacific monument of Ouveillan (a Monumental Modern portic in the South of France) was very appreciated. During his first solo exhibition, at the art dealer Léopold Zborowski in 1931, two sculptures were acquired by the Musée national d'art moderne in Paris (now in the Centre Pompidou) and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.[1] [2]
Père et Fils (1925)

Iché was a very good friend of Max Jacob, close to Guillaume Apollinaire, Picasso, Jacques Lipchitz, Zadkine and a childhood friend of Joe Bousquet. He sculpted the faces of André Breton[3], Paul Éluard and Federico García Lorca.

In his studio of Montparnasse, in 1937, he executed a Guernica sculpture on the day (April 27, 1937) of the announcement of this event on the radio station and didn't wish to exhibit before.

He was amongst one of the 200 pioneers of the French Resistance - he was in the Groupe du musée de l'Homme - during the summer of 1940 and participated at the Degenerate art exhibitions. He sculpted so La Déchirée (The Torn), which was brought to London and given to Général de Gaulle, became one of the symbols of the French Resistance. [1] [2]

He participated at the Venice Biennale in 1948 with Le Couple (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris) and received the Grand Prix de Sculpture in 1953 for Melpomène 36. He was chosen to sculpt the Apollinaire Monument in Paris[4] and an Auschwitz' Memorial in Poland, but both projects were interrupted by his premature death.

Iché's work is close to surrealism and like the sculptors Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier inherits an aesthetic born from the workshop of Antoine Bourdelle.[1] [2]
“ On the manure of the Millennia after geogical cataclysms and warlike disasters, only the statues will remain. ”

— René Iché [5]

Movie

Jean-Pierre Melville's film Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres, 1969) is based, like the novel of Joseph Kessel, on the Resistance network, where Iché participated: Cohors-Asturies. The character of Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse) is inspired by Iché.

References

1. ^ a b c *Robert Maillard, Dictionary of Modern Sculpture, 1962. Tudor. 310 pages. Page 141.
2. ^ a b c *Michel Seuphor, The Sculpture of this Century, Dictionary of Modern Sculpture. 1959. Zwemmer. 372 pages. Page 282.
3. ^ Lyford Amy, Surrealist masculinities, Ed. University Presses Of California, Columbia And Princeton (United States), 2007.
4. ^ Peter Read, Picasso and Apollinaire. Ed. University Presses Of California, Columbia And Princeton (United States), april 2008.
5. ^ Premier Manifeste des Sculpteurs, by René Iché, Surrealist trac, november 1949

* Bibliographic Guide to Art and Architecture, 1978. G.K. Hall. Page 488.
* Jane Clapp, Sculpture Index. 1970. Scarecrow Press. x pages. Page 459.
* Robert Maillard, Dictionary of Modern Sculpture, 1962. Tudor. 310 pages. Page 141.
* Michel Seuphor, The Sculpture of this Century, Dictionary of Modern Sculpture. 1959. Zwemmer. 372 pages. Page 282.
* Julian Park, The culture of France in our time. 1954. Cornell University Press. 345 pages. Page 87
* Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Index of Artists, International-biographical Including Painters, Sculptors ... 1935. R.R. Bowker Co. 493 pages. ISBN 0901571768. Page 136.

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