François Pompon

François Pompon was a French animal sculptor. His works are exhibited at the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon and the François Pompon Museum in Saulieu. His style is characterized by its smooth and simplified curves. He was once the student of Pierre Louis Rouillard at the Decorative Arts School in 1870. He worked alongside Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel between 1890 and 1895. Pompon’s sculpture are marked by an intuitive apprehension, a denial of geometry and a particular taste for traditional materials. He would say: “I love sculpture when there is no shadow or whole”, using light and smooth rocks. In 1905, his decision of simplifying forms became the leitmotiv of all of his personal sculptures. He smoothed sensitive surfaces and got rid of any decoration for his animal representations. When the Bear first appeared at the Autumn Fair in 1922, the work marked the spirit because of this modernism used on the agitated sculpture, inherited from the 19th century.