Chauvin

“Chauvin is a solitary man; he will not disperse himself, he will not adapt to the human world; he will withdraw into a memory of earthly things and seek to escape this world from within.”

Stanislas Fumet, preface to the catalogue Derrière le Miroir no. 18, Galerie Maeght, 1949.

Over six decades, Chauvin developed a body of work that places him, alongside Brancusi and Arp, among the French inventors of abstract sculpture. He exhibited at Galerie Jeanne Bucher, then at Galerie Maeght, and represented France at the Venice Biennale in 1962. The French State began acquiring his sculptures in 1939; on his death in 1976, he donated 162 maquettes to the musée national d'Art moderne.