Robert Couturier

ROBERT COUTURIER (France, 1905 - 2008).
Untitled.
Sculpture in DAUM glass paste.
With signatures and manufacturing marks on the bottom.
Presents faults and wear on the base.
Measurements: 79 x 20 x 17 cm (sculpture); 16 x 20 x 20 x 20 cm (base).
The sculptor Robert Couturier began his studies at the École Estienne in Paris, where he entered in 1920 and was trained in the discipline of lithography. However, he had to interrupt his studies due to the death of his father, after which he opened a lithography studio in Paris. In 1929 he met the sculptor Alfred Janniot, and the following year he won the Prix Blumenthal. In 1932 he obtained a teaching post in the French capital, a position that allowed him to meet many painters of the time, including Henri Matisse, from whom he received valuable advice. During these years he was also a disciple of Aristide Maillol, with whom he collaborated in 1938. Years before, in 1930, Couturier was awarded by the Fondation Américaine pour la Pensée et l'Art Français. In 1937 he created the sculptures for the Pavillon de l'Élégance at the Paris International Exposition, in collaboration with the architect Émile Aillaud. After the outbreak of war, however, he was taken prisoner during the occupation of France, although he managed to escape and took refuge in the unoccupied zone. After the liberation, he was appointed professor at the École des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and then went on to teach at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In the 1940s, in parallel to his teaching career, he began to make his work known outside the French borders: in 1947 he participated in the Anglo-French Art Exhibition held at the Art Center in London, in 1950 at the Venice Biennale and in 1951 at the São Paulo Biennale. In 1966 he was awarded the WIldestein Prize, and also in those years he was a founding member of the Salon de Mai. Already in the seventies his figure will be definitively recognized through important exhibitions held at the Rodin Museum (1970) and the Monnaie de Paris (1975). In 2005, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Maillol Museum of the French capital dedicated an important retrospective exhibition to him. Couturier is currently represented in museums and galleries in Paris, Bayeux, Poitiers, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Boston, Jerusalem, Hakone, Antwerp and Havana.