220 personal objects of the famous sculptor Antoine Bourdelle are the subject of a very beautiful (and unprecedented) temporary exhibition at the Ingres-Bourdelle museum in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne), from July 8 to November 12, 2023. Virtual visit in a few pictures.
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Antoine Bourdelle, born in 1861 in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne), surrounded himself all his life with a considerable number of objects: works of art but also notebooks, tools, photos, costumes… was kept religiously by his wife Cleopatra and daughter Rhodia. A collection which is today the subject of a very beautiful exhibition at the Ingres-Bourdelle museum in Montaubanthanks to the loan and the collaboration of the Bourdelle museum in Paris, where the Montalban artist had his studio.
It all started with this “overalls”. In 2020, thanks to work in his studio, the master’s work clothes were discovered buried in a closet. Blue corduroy suits that gave the idea to the team of the Bourdelle museum in Paris to mount an exhibition on the objects of the famous sculptor, a contemporary of Rodin.
Antoine Bourdelle’s work suit • © Marie Martin/FTV
Antoine Bourdelle was very attached to this work garment, which he dyed himself. “Why this blue corduroy? ‘Cause it’s the workman’s outfit“explains Florence Viguier-Dutheil, chief curator of heritage at the Ingres-Bourdelle museum in Montauban. “For Bourdelle, to be a sculptor is not to be an arrived bourgeois, it is to be an artisan worker and he wants to show it in his outfit that he adopts in front of everyone.“.
Bourdelle, son of a carpenter-cabinetmaker and grandson of a goatherd, never wanted to deny his modest origins. All his life, he kept his father’s furniture, going so far as to have his models pose on a chair made by him.
Similarly, echoing his childhood, he sculpted rams and goats many times. As for his geographical origin (he was born and raised in Montauban), he was proud of it. “I sculpt in langue d’oc“, he writes in one of his many intimate and illustrated notebooks which are exhibited here.
With age (and a little overweight), Antoine Bourdelle leaves his blue velvet for a loose white blouse that he designs himself and in which he will be represented time and time again, as evidenced by a full-length statue, exhibited in Montauban near its famous bust of Apollo.
Antoine Bourdelle and his famous bust of Apollo. • © Marie Martin/FTV
Quickly after his arrival in Paris, Antoine Bourdelle found his studio in the Montparnasse district. He won’t leave him again. And for 40 years, nothing or almost nothing will come out of it, apart from his works.
Thus, all his sculptor’s tools have been preserved: they are the subject of an entire room of the temporary exhibition, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the intimacy of the master’s work.
“This way of showing an artist is also to share with the visitor a more intimate knowledge, to allow him to embody it in a way”explains Florence Viguier-Dutheil.
The tools of the master. • © Marie Martin/FTV
We don’t know much about it, but Antoine Bourdelle was passionate about photography. For his models but also to reproduce works of art and represent his sculpted works. Bourdelle has brought together a number of studio shots, of his models, of his students, of the exhibitions dedicated to him.
All his pictures have been kept, as has his travel camera and even his product cabinet (developers and fixers).
The developer and fixer product cabinet of Antoine Bourdelle, the photographer. • © Marie Martin/FTV
Known and recognized during his lifetime, by his peers, by critics and institutions, Bourdelle often expressed his desire for a museum dedicated to his work. He died in 1929: his funeral was public, he was photographed and painted on his deathbed. A death mask is made, now on display.
Antoine Bourdelle’s death mask • © Marie Martin/FTV
After his death, his family will never cease to preserve, preserve and pass on his work. A museum in his name opened in 1949, in his former apartments and workshops.
It is this exceptional heritage that is given to see at the Ingres-Bourdelle museum in Montauban, until November 12, 2023.
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