Jean-Gabriel CHAUVIN

Jean Chauvin (Jean-Gabriel Chauvin, 1889–1976) – Pioneer of Abstract Sculpture: Life, Charcoal Drawings and Bronzes

Born Jean-Gabriel Chauvin, Jean Chauvin (1889–1976) ranks among the very first exponents of abstract sculpture in France. Working largely alone and indifferent to the fashions of the moment, he spent some sixty years carving pure, organic forms charged with symbolism – an achievement that places him beside Constantin Brancusi and Jean Arp in the story of modern sculpture. A virtuoso of direct carving in rare hardwoods, he was also a draughtsman of real power. In Britain, his work is represented in the Sculpture Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

At Galerie Le Coin des Arts in Paris, collectors will find original works by Jean Chauvin – principally works on paper, above all charcoal drawings, together with a selection of sculptures – each one chosen for its quality, its provenance and its condition.

For the full catalogue of his work, his papers and a detailed chronology, please consult the official website of the Archives Jean-Gabriel Chauvin (jeanchauvin.com), published by the Comité Jean Chauvin.

Early life: from Rochefort to the Paris art schools

Chauvin was born in Rochefort-sur-Mer, on the Atlantic coast of Charente-Maritime, on 30 March 1889. His twin brother died within days of their birth, and the motifs of birth, the double and twinship would recur throughout his œuvre. In 1906, aged seventeen, he whittled his first sculpture from a piece of birch with a knife – in secret, since his father opposed any thought of an artistic career.

Following his father’s death he left for Paris in 1908, enrolling first at the École des Arts Décoratifs and, in 1909, in the studio of the academic sculptor Antonin Mercié at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he would stay until 1915 and where he formed a lasting friendship with François Pompon. That same year, 1909, he carved La Toilette in Japanese ebony, often cited as one of the earliest abstract sculptures produced in France.

Direct carving, Joseph Bernard and a first solo show

Between 1913 and 1920 Chauvin showed at the Salon d’Automne – of which he became an elected member – and the Salon des Indépendants, whilst working as an assistant to Joseph Bernard, whose Frise de la Danse (now in the Musée d’Orsay) he helped to carve. Like Bernard, he practised direct carving: no pointing machine, no studio assistant, but the sculptor alone before a block of ebony or another precious timber, drawing out the grain through meticulous polishing. His taut, smooth forms – seed, flame, bird, human figure – were in some cases later cast in bronze.

His first one-man exhibition opened in June 1928 at the gallery Au Sacre du Printemps, rue du Cherche-Midi, which Jeanne Bucher later ran under her own name; she remained his champion until her death in 1947. The couturier and connoisseur Jacques Doucet acquired one of his wood carvings for his studio at Neuilly, and Le Corbusier bought one of his early bronzes. During the 1930s Chauvin set up his studio in Malakoff and kept a house at Port-des-Barques, close to the estuary near which he was born.

Commissions of the 1930s and the first State purchase

In 1935 he produced a Fontaine lumineuse (illuminated fountain) for the ocean liner Normandie. For the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris he designed an eleven-metre concrete Sculpture-Signal and two large porcelain basins for the Sèvres pavilion. In 1939 the French State purchased Le Tombeau d’Ève, his first work to enter a public collection; Puissant et solitaire (1939) and Incantation maternelle (1947) were to follow.

Maeght, touring exhibitions and Venice

On 24 March 1949 the Galerie Maeght opened an exhibition of forty-one sculptures and drawings, accompanied by issue no. 18 of Derrière le miroir with texts by Robert Rey, Stanislas Fumet and Georges Hugnet. Between 1947 and 1955, under the auspices of Cécile Goldscheider, curator at the Musée Rodin, his work toured Bern, Prague, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Düsseldorf; in 1954 he was shown at the Kunsthaus Zürich and in Yverdon in the company of Brancusi, Arp, Pevsner, González and Laurens.

In 1960 the dealer Alex Maguy mounted a solo exhibition at the Galerie de l’Élysée, and Christian Zervos published a monograph through Cahiers d’Art. Two years later, in 1962, Chauvin represented France at the 31st Venice Biennale, with thirty-four sculptures chosen by Jacques Lassaigne, sharing the French pavilion with Alfred Manessier and Serge Poliakoff.

Legacy and public collections, from Paris to London

Jean Chauvin died on 15 May 1976 at the Château de Chaillé, Saint-Martin-lès-Melle, and 162 of his maquettes were given to the Musée national d’Art moderne. His work features in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (Narcisse, 1939), the Fondation de Coubertin (Sirène, 1937), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum holds Vaisseau, a bronze statuette dated 1937–1947, cast no. 2 of an edition of five bearing the mark of the Coubertin foundry, given to the museum by John Scott.

Research on the artist is led by the Comité Jean Chauvin, which looks after his archive, published the catalogue raisonné of the sculptures (Chauvin sculpteur, 2007) and is preparing those of the drawings and photographs. His complete biography and a survey of his sculpture may be found on the website of the Archives Jean-Gabriel Chauvin.

Chauvin as a draughtsman: charcoal drawings and works on paper

Chauvin drew all his life, and his charcoal drawings and pencil studies should not be regarded as mere preparatory sketches. They are independent works in which the same germinal forms and tensioned volumes are rendered in velvety blacks and softly stumped modelling. For many collectors they offer a more intimate – and more accessible – way into the world of one of the founders of abstract sculpture.

Collecting Jean Chauvin: a guide to drawings and bronze casts

Before acquiring a work by Jean Chauvin, it is worth looking closely at the medium (charcoal, pencil or ink on paper; carved wood, plaster or bronze), the signature or studio stamp, the date, the provenance, the exhibition history and the condition. For a bronze cast, the foundry, the cast number and the date of casting are essential – as the numbered Coubertin cast at the V&A illustrates. The sculptures are recorded in the 2007 catalogue raisonné, and authentication is the responsibility of the Comité Jean Chauvin.

Galerie Le Coin des Arts selects each piece with particular attention to its authenticity, provenance and state of preservation, and advises collectors on their choice of work, on framing works on paper and on long-term conservation. The gallery also presents other leading sculptors and painters of his generation, including Jean Arp, Ossip Zadkine, Alfred Manessier and Serge Poliakoff.

Sources and further reading

Archives Jean-Gabriel Chauvin – Comité Jean Chauvin (jeanchauvin.com) · Chauvin sculpteur, catalogue raisonné of the sculptures, 2007 · Derrière le miroir no. 18, Galerie Maeght, 1949 · Christian Zervos, Chauvin, Cahiers d’Art, 1960 · Victoria and Albert Museum, London – Vaisseau, A.13-2016.