Title: COQUILLES
Material: BRONZE 50KK
Size: 92 CM X 48 CM X 44 CM ,
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2/8 2012
ANTOINE PONCET, 1928 -
Antoine Poncet was born in Paris in 1928, but grew up in Switzerland. Both his father and grandfather were painters, yet Poncet, under the tutelage of Germaine Richier, opted at an early age for sculpture as his vocation. From 1942-1945 he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Art in Lausanne and subsequently moved to Paris, where he continued his studies at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere with Marcel Gimond and Osip Zadkine. He befriended likeminded young sculptors such as Alicia Penalba, François Stahly and Etienne Martine and met Constantin Brancusi, Henri Laurens and Jean Arp. Especially the latter had a profound influence on him, as Poncet was his assistant from 1953 to 1955, before embarking on his proper career as a sculptor of international renown.
Interested in the purity of shapes, Poncet was naturally drawn towards abstraction. By painstakingly eliminating the unessential, he created sculptures that are of deceitful simplicity. Voluptuous, organic shapes show holes and wide openings, which, along with the folds and pleats that are characteristic of his work, give the impression of a whirlwind of motion. “The aspect of movement is essential in my research,” the sculptor admits. “Everything is in motion in nature, in life”. In Poncet’s work, however, the dislocating effect of motion and asymmetry is offset by a serene spirituality, harmony and balance, which make his sculptures seemingly weightless; “they have the air,” as he puts it, “of being happy to be alive.”
Poncet has mainly worked in bronze and marble. In the mid fifties he discovered the magic of polished bronze, which imbued his sculptures with the luminosity, radiance and vivacity that he sought, as can well be appreciated in the sculptures seen above. A decade later he also began working in marble in Carrara, Italy.
From the early fifties onwards, Poncet exhibited his work first in various important art fairs such as the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture and then in prestigious galleries (e.g. Galerie Jean-Louis Roques, Paris, Brook Street Gallery, London, Slatkin Galleries and Weintraub Gallery, New York) and museums (e.g. Musée Galliera, Paris, Metropolitan Museum, N.Y., Μusée Bourdelle). In 1956 he represented Switzerland at the Biennale in Venice and a year later (1957) he won the Prix Andre Susse. More distinctions followed: in 1983 he received the Henri Moore Grand Prize of the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan, in1996 the Prix de l’Hermitage, Lausanne. In 1993 he was elected as a member of the Academie des Beaux Arts, and served as its president for the year 2009.
Poncet has created many monumental sculptures for public places (e.g. Froide Amante in 1975 for the Ecole Polytechnique de Saclay) in France, Switzerland, the U.S., Japan and China. His work is included in many private (e.g. collection Nathan Cummings) and public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection in Washington, the Museum of Modern Art in Milan, the Centre de Pompidou and the Musée national d\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'Art modern in Paris, the Musée d\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museum of Open Arts d’Hakone in Japan and the Jing’An Sculpture Park in Shanghai.
Antoine Poncet continues to live and work in Paris.
