Germaine Richier, a major 20th century sculptor at the Pompidou Centre

A genuine tribute to women - with works on show in museums throughout the country this year! The Pompidou Centre decided to focus on the extraordinary and dazzling career of Germaine Richier who died in 1959 at the early age of 57. She was the first female artist to have work exhibited at the National Museum of Modern Art during her own lifetime (in 1956). She rapidly created a deeply original style far from the classic image of men and women. She initially trained at Antoine Bourdelle’s studio but dropped realism for a more amplified form of expressionism after staying in Switzerland during WWII. She produced two major bronze works, l’Orage (the storm) and l’Ouragane (the hurricane) at that time, which were highly acclaimed by critics as their rough and scared appearance, without any formal beauty, illustrated the anguish felt from the recent war.

The sculptor wanted to give the statues a more alive and changing appearance and her fascination for life led her to create human-animal hybrids. Germaine Richier’s art is steeped in pantheism and her organic forms combine human, plant and animal elements, such as Christ d’Assy (1951), which caused such controversy it had to be removed from the church until 1969! She introduced metal wires into her sculptures forming intersecting triangular extensions joining sections together and to the base. Towards the end of her life, she started incorporating other materials and colour, producing a series of 5 massive chess pieces which can be seen in the Jardin des Tuileries, proving just how important she was to 20th century creative Art.