Jean Robert (Ipoustéguy)

Ipoustéguy
(France, 1920 – 2006)

French sculptor and draughtsman, born at Dun-sur-Meuse. Studied painting in Paris at evening courses in the studio of Robert Lesbounit in 1938, and worked and exhibited for several years with a group of fellow-pupils. Executed frescoes and stained-glass windows for the church of Saint-Jacques at Montrouge 1947-9. Settled in 1949 at Choisy-le-Roi and turned exclusively to sculpture. After making abstract sculptures of a crystalline structure c.1955, his forms became lumpier and more organic, with allusions to armour and the human figure, prehistory, space exploration, etc.

First oneman exhibition of sculpture at the Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, 1962; awarded a David E. Bright Prize at the 1964 Venice Biennale. Since 1963, his work has included life-size, rather Surrealistic figures, sometimes interpenetrating with their surroundings or as it were crushed by them, in a violent or erotic way. Has also made a number of marble carvings at Carrara since 1967. Worked in Berlin as a guest artist 1973-4. Lives at Choisy-le-Roi.