Jean-Gabriel Chauvin

Chauvin was born on March 30, 1889 in Rochefort sur Mer (Charente Maritime). He is the only survivor with his twin André Joseph from a family of six children. The themes of birth and twinning permeate all of his work.

His first known sculpture dates from 1906, a birch wood cut with a knife at the age of 17 and which he later said to have hidden under a pile of coal, from the gaze of a father who was harshly opposed to his vocation.

In 1908, at the age of 19, he arrived in Paris, entered the School of Decorative Arts. We then find him at the School of Fine Arts in the studio of sculptor Antonin Mercié, he will stay there until 1915 because he was exempted from the service of arms in 1914. He meets François Pompon, with whom he will become close.

Between 1913 and 1920, Chauvin participated in the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants while working in Joseph Bernard's studio where he participated in the carving of the Frieze of Dance (currently at the Musée d'Orsay). Member of the Salon d'Automne, he also exhibited two sculptures there in 1928. Turning definitively towards abstract sculpture, he was noticed by the collector Jacques Doucet who bought him a sculpture.

In 1928, Chauvin had his first private exhibition at the Au Sacre du Printemps gallery. Taken over by Jeanne Bucher under her own name, he exhibited there until her death in 1947. During these years he befriended Robert Rey, who became director of plastic arts in 1944, as well as with Jean Cassou, founder of the National Museum of Modern Art.

In 1935, at the request of the architect Pierre Patout, he made a large sculpture Fontaine Lumineuse for the liner Normandie.

In 1937, still at the request of Pierre Patout, Chauvin produced a monumental sculpture (11 meters high) in exploded concrete for the Decorative Artists pavilion at the Universal Exhibition as well as two large porcelain basins for the Sèvres pavilion.

From 1947 to 1955, under the aegis of Cécile Goldscheider (curator of the Rodin Museum) he exhibited in Bern, Prague, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Düsseldorf. In 1949, he had a private exhibition at the Maeght gallery (Paris).

Several exhibitions will follow until the end of his life. In 1962 he was chosen to represent France at the 31st Venice Biennale. In 1976, he donated 162 models of his sculptures to the National Museum of Modern Art.

He died on May 15, 1976.