Germaine Richier
Germaine Richier
French sculptor Germaine Richier spent the majority of her art career creating powerful and often melancholic human and animal forms out of darkly tarnished bronze. Born in Grans in 1902, the artist studied at the École des Beaux Arts, at the studio of renowned bust-maker Louis-Jacques Guigues, and with the Rodin-trained bronze expert Antoine Bourdelle.
Although she was trained classically, usually sculpting from a live model, and remained loyal to the traditional medium of bronze, Richier also experimented extensively in her work. Her early sculptures included characteristics of both humans and animals in a single piece, and after the second World War, her emotive figures began to look significantly more wretched and deformed. Still, throughout her artistic life, many of her works maintained levity, playfulness, and fantasy, so that instead of simply documenting life as it was, Richier offered another, more hopeful option for the way things might be.
In 1936, Richier won the Prix Blumenthal. She exhibited extensively during her lifetime, including five times at the Venice Biennale and at museums such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The artist’s fluorishing career was tragically truncated when she died of cancer in 1959. Since then, venues worldwide such as the Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, the Kunstmuseum Berne, Switzerland, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Denmark, have continued to showcase her extensive oeuvre.
Selected Works
Exhibitions
Museum Exhibitions
Selected Press
Chinaso | 全球最贵的女性艺术家TOP10
March 10, 2018
Tate Modern | Germaine Richier
September 1, 2016
Culture Catch | Germaine Richier: The Return of a Shape Shifter
June 6, 2014
Art in America | Germaine Richier
May 7, 2014
Artforum | Germaine Richier
May 1, 2014
art critical | Ready for Revival: Germaine Richier’s Figurative Sculptural Fantasies
April 12, 2014
WNYC | Digging Into the Past for New Art
April 11, 2014
Blouin Artinfo | VIDEO: Sculptural Symphony of Germaine Richier at Dominique Lévy, Perrotin
April 4, 2014
Brooklyn Rail | Germaine Richier
April 2, 2014
Artslant | Rediscovering Greatness: the sculptures of Germaine Richier
April 2, 2014
Bloomberg | Forgotten Artists Monetized as Millionaires Buy History
April 1, 2014
The New York Times | Staging a Rescue From Obscurity
March 20, 2014
Artnet | Must See Gallery Shows on the Upper East Side When Visiting ADAA
March 7, 2014
Wall Street Journal | Without a Drop of Irony
March 5, 2014
Wallpaper | Germaine Richier's sculptures get their first US showing in nearly sixty years
March 4, 2014
Huffington Post | Quick! 10 Things to See in New York Before They Close
March 3, 2014
Artforum | Germaine Richier
March 3, 2014
WNYC | Humans – Crossed with Toads and Spiders
March 1, 2014
whitewall | Top Exhibitions Opening this Week in NY (Feb 24 - Mar 2)
March 1, 2014
Hyperallergic | Reconsidering Germaine Richier’s Spectral Sculpture
February 28, 2014
Interview Magazine | Germaine Richier's Forest
February 28, 2014
Le Journal Francais des Etats-Unis | Les œuvres de Germaine Richier exposées à New York, après 50 ans d'absence
February 27, 2014
More Information
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Germaine Richier
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Joel Shapiro
Kazuo Shiraga
Pierre Soulages
Pat Steir
Tu Hongtao
Günther Uecker
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