Charles Auffret (1929-2001) - Lot 234

Charles Auffret (1929-2001) Gabrielle wiping her foot 1964 Terracotta proof Signed and numbered 4/8 31.5 x 28.5 x 16 cm Bibliography: Charles Auffret (1929-2001). Sculpteur et dessinateur, exhibition catalog Mont-de-Marsan, musée Despiau-Wlérick, August 10 - September 16 2012, Mont-de-Marsan, L'Atelier des Brisants, 2012, p. 20, repr. (bronze print) In 1964, Charles Auffret created two sculptures in the same vein: Gabrielle s'essuyant le pied, and Femme à la toilette. They marked the start of his career, and revealed the 35-year-old sculptor to the public. With La Femme à la toilette, Charles Auffret wins the Prix Godard. For Auffret, sculpture is conceived as "drawing in space" and cannot be envisaged without rigorous practice. For him, sculpture is also architecture, hence his intensive study of form and structure. He feels no need to smooth or stretch the surface of his works like a Despiau or a Maillol, and instead leaves his modelling work visible, bearing witness to the immediacy of the creative gesture. In this, he joins the "sculpted impressionism" researched by Rodin, Degas and Medardo Rosso. After immersing himself in Burgundian sculpture while studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, Charles Auffret joined the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1947. There, he studied with Alfred Jeanniot and Marcel Gimond. In 1958, he set up his studio in the Buttes-Chaumont district and discovered the work of Charles Despiau, Robert Wlérick and Charles Malfray. In 1964, he was awarded the Prix du Groupe des Neuf. Following in the footsteps of the Schnegg Gang half a century earlier, the Groupe des Neuf was formed in 1963. Jean Carton, Raymond Martin, Marcel Damboise, Paul Cornet, Raymond Corbin, Léon Indenbaum, Léopold Kretz, Gunnar Nilsson and Jean Osouf, heirs to Wlérick, Despiau, Malfray and Gimond, united around a common conception of sculpture, reaffirming their direct affiliation with so-called "independent" sculpture. The following year, winner of the Paul Ricard Foundation's International Sculpture Prize, Charles Auffret was invited to take up residence on the Ile de Bendor with his sculptor wife Arlette Ginioux. There, he erected a monumental sculpture known as L'Éveil, one of his major works.