René Iché

René Iché (21 January 1897 – 23 December 1954) was a 20th-century French sculptor.

René Iché
René Iché
Born(1897-01-21)21 January 1897
Sallèles-d'Aude
Died23 December 1954(1954-12-23) (aged 57)
Paris
NationalityFrench
Known forSculpture
Notable work
The Torn, Guernica
MovementModern art, Surrealism
AwardsGrand prix de Sculpture

Life and work

René Iché was born in Sallèles-d'Aude, France. He 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 church in the South of France) was well received. 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 Georges Pompidou) and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.[1] [2]

In 1928, he married his model Rosa Achard, known as Renée.[3] His daughter Laurence, who later became a writer, was a model for some of his work.[4]

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 Joë Bousquet. He sculpted the faces of André Breton,[5] Paul Éluard and Federico García Lorca.

In his studio of Montparnasse, in 1937, he executed a Guernica sculpture on the day (27 April 1937) of the announcement of this event on the radio station. Upon completing the work he did not wish to exhibit it.

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 General Charles 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[6] and an Auschwitz' Memorial in Poland, but both projects were interrupted by his premature death in Paris.

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 geological cataclysms and warlike disasters, only the statues will remain.

— René Iché [7]

Film

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 to which Iché belonged, Cohors-Asturies. The character of Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse) is inspired by Iché.

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See also

References
    • 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. Page 282.
  3. "René Iché, un artiste engagé resté fidèle à ses origines". L'Indépendant (in French). May 28, 2016.
  4. "Laurence Iché". Le Monde (in French). September 29, 2007.
  5. Lyford Amy, Surrealist masculinities, Ed. University Presses Of California, Columbia And Princeton (United States), 2007.
  6. Peter Read, Picasso and Apollinaire. Ed. University Presses Of California, Columbia And Princeton (United States), April 2008.
  7. 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 0-901571-76-8. Page 136.
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