Pierre Nocca

Pierre Louis Nocca is a French sculptor, born on August 28, 1916 in Sète (Hérault) and died in the same city on February 15, 2016.

At the age of 15, Pierre Nocca began to paint seascapes for a Sète painter, who encouraged him to enter the Montpellier School of Fine Arts. The prizes he won there allowed him to be admitted, in 1937, to the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, where he had Henri Bouchard, Paul Niclausse and Charles Lemaresquier as professors. Mobilized in 1939, he was decorated with the Croix de guerre. In 1941, he returned to Paris where he joined the Resistance and participated in the liberation of the City [ref. necessary].

He occupies a workshop at La Ruche and lives in Saint Germain des Prés. He became friends with the sculptors César and Albert Féraud.[ref. necessary]

In 1947, the city of Montpellier commissioned the monument to the Martyrs of the Resistance from him, as well as, in 1964, the monument dedicated to Jean Jaurès. The demolition of his studio in La Ruche in 1957 brought him back more and more often to his region of origin, where he carried out numerous commissions. He settled permanently in Sète where from 1965 to 1985, he was a professor at the School of Fine Arts, while creating many monumental works in the south of France.

The city of Sète pays homage to him by naming him Guest of Honor at Saint Louis 2010.