Alfred Boucher

ALFRED BOUCHER (Bouy-sur-Orvin, 1850 - Aix-les-Bains, 1934),
"Towards the goal".
Bronze.
Signed.
Presents foundry signature and numbering: "Siot".
Measurements: 45 x 69 x 37 cm.
This bronze sculpture appears illustrated in the following books:
-Bronze, Sculptors and Foundrymen, H. Berman, Abage.
-The Dictionary of Bronze Sculptors, James Mackay. Antique Collectors Club.
-Les bronzes de XIXe siècle, Pierre Kjellberg, Les editions des amateurs.
-Art Bronzes, Michael Forrest.
This bronze is a reduction of the sculptural group placed in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. It was first exhibited at the 1886 Salon, where it received a first class medal. The three nude runners meet just at the finish line and struggle intensely, a very difficult subject executed with the greatest skill.
Alfred Boucher was a French sculptor and painter who enjoyed great recognition during his lifetime, receiving numerous public commissions. Born in Bouy-sur-Orvin and died in Aix-les-Bains, his training began in modest surroundings; his father, a farm laborer, entered the service of the sculptor Joseph Marius Ramus in Nogent-sur-Seine. It was there that the young Boucher, shown to the sculptor Paul Dubois, found encouragement to develop his artistic vocation. Thanks to the financial support of his town and department, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1869, where he studied with Paul Dubois and Auguste Dumont. Although he did not win the first prize in Rome, he won the second prize in 1876 and made training stays in Italy in 1877-1878 and 1883-1884.
His consecration came at the Salon of 1881 with La Piété filiale. From then on, his fame grew through the diffusion of bronze reductions of his works and the execution of numerous busts of prominent figures in the scientific, literary and political fields, such as Laennec, Maupassant, King George I of Greece and President Jean Casimir-Perier.
He was one of the French sculptors most sought after by public institutions. His style successfully tackled various genres: from realistic sculpture of classical inspiration, such as Au but ! a group of runners that won prizes at the 1886 Salon and the 1889 Universal Exposition, to representations of social and labor themes.
From 1889 he settled in Aix-les-Bains, keeping his workshop in Paris, and received many memorial commissions, such as the chapel of the Hériot family in La Boissière-École, that of the Caulaincourt family in Caulaincourt or the tomb of Auguste Burdeau in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
In 1902, he founded the Paul Dubois-Alfred Boucher museum in Nogent-sur-Seine, renamed in 2017 as the Camille Claudel museum. That same year, motivated by a philanthropic spirit, he created La Ruche in Paris, a set of workshops for young artists in the Montparnasse district, reusing a pavilion from the 1900 Universal Exhibition. He was also the teacher of several important figures, including Camille Claudel, who dedicated a bust to him, as well as Laure Coutan and Louis Morel, a later collaborator of Renoir.