Henri-Georges Adam
Encyclopedia
Henri-Georges Adam was a French engraver and non-figurative sculptor of the École de Paris, who was also involved in the creation of numerous monumental tapestries
. His work in these three areas is regarded as among the most extensive of the twentieth century.
and mother from Saint-Malo
. During his childhood he spent his summers in Saint-Malo
and Saint-Servan
. In 1918, after attending a watchmaking school, he started working the studio of his father, a jeweler and goldsmith
in the Marais district of Paris, where he learned to carve and later to engrave. Then in 1925 he took evening classes at a drawing
school in Montparnasse
and after a stint at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1926 became a drawing professor of the Ville de Paris
. Beginning in 1928 he began to make satirical
sketches and political caricature
s. "His spirit of cynical and apocalyptic derision is of the same nature as that of Rouault illustrating Miserere de Guerre. Anarchist, pacifist, antimilitarist, Adam reverses all taboos. He does not care about the myths of his country, of his family or his religion", notes Waldemar George (Adam, 1968, p. 30).
In 1934 Adam got involved with engraving, etching, the use of the burin
and the environment of the surrealists
, André Breton
, Louis Aragon
, Paul Éluard
. He made his first exhibit in 1934, with a preface by Jean Cassou
in 1936 after which he began his violently impressionistic engravings entitled, Désastres de la guerre, in response to the Spanish Civil War
. In 1936 he joined the Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, where he met painters Maurice Estrève, Alfred Manessier
, Edouard Pignon, and Arpad Szenes
. He took part, along with Picasso, Matisse, Rouault, Dufy, Fernand Léger
, Chagall, Chaim Soutine
, Zadkine, Roger Bissière
and Edouard Pignon in the exhibition Quatorze Juillet by Romain Rolland
at the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, in which Picasso painted the curtain scene.
Mobilized in 1939 and taken prisoner, Adam was assigned as the auxiliary nurse at the hospital Saint-Jacques de Besançon, where he made many drawings of surgeons, soldiers and the wounded. He was eventually released at the end of 1940. He tackled sculpting in 1942, and in October 1943 he, along with Gaston Diehl
, Leon Gischia, Jean Le Moal
, Manessier, Pignon, Gustave Singier
, became one of the fifteen founders of the Salon du Mai. That same year he created the sets and costumes, masks and two four meter-tall statues for Jean-Paul Sartre
's Les Mouches which Charles Dullin
assembled. He also carved Le Gisant, a tribute to the French Resistance
and martyrs, which would be exhibited in the Salon de la Libération. Adam became friends with Picasso, who lent him his studio in the rue des Grands-Augustins where he worked more at ease until 1950. Between 1948 and 1949, at his Boisgeloup estate, near Gisors
, he realized among other works, Le Grand Nu conserved by the Musée national d'art moderne
.
In 1949 Adam presented a comprehensive exhibition of his works, frequently of women's sleek forms, at the gallery Aimé Maeght
and in 1952 his copper engravings based on the year's theme of the Month, went on display in the bookstore-gallery La Hune. From 1950 to 1955, he was a professor of design at Antony
, a college town which today bears his name. During 1950, he instructed many painters and sculptors (including Raphy).
From 1955 the first retrospective of his work was organized at the Stedelijk Museum
, Amsterdam
In 1956 and 1957, Adam developed one of his most famous suites of engravings, Dalles, Sable et Eau showing scenes of the sea, sand and granite of Penmarc'h, and a series of sculptures named Mutationes marines. He made new tapestries for the French Embassy
in Washington
in 1957, Meridien for the Palace of UNESCO
in 1958, and Galaxie for Air France
in New York
in 1961.
After a project for Monument du Prisonnier Politique Inconnu in 1951, his Le Signal was erected in front of the Musée du Havre in 1961, the first of his monumental sculptures. The number of Adam's sculptures multiplied: Le Cygne blanc for the Lycée Charlemagne à Vicennes (1962), exposition of Obélisque oblique (1962) at the French Pavilion at the Exposition de Montreal
, a set of sculptures and tapestries for l'église de Moutier in Switzerland, for which Manessier created the windows (1963–1967), Mur, a 22 meter-long wall, and La Feuille for the lycée de Chantilly (1965), Trois pointes effilées for the college-city of La Flèche
(1965), a monument for Vichy
(1960–1966), La Grande étrave for the house of culture of Thonon (1966), Fontaine for the city of Bihorel-les-Rou (1966), Le Minotaure for the college-city of Segré
(1967), L'Oiseau de granit and La Grande Table de conférence for the lycée technique de Saint-Brieuc
(1967).
In 1959 Adam was appointed professor of engraving at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux-Arts de Paris and later head professor of the workshop of monumental sculpture. He installed his own workshop and presses in La Ville du Bois, near Montlhéry
while many of his exhibitions were presented in museums in France and Europe. In 1961 Adam developed a series of sculptures entitled Cryptogrammes. A retrospective of Adam's work was presented in 1966 at the Musée national d'art moderne in Paris with a foreword by Bernard Dorival. Three of his sculptures and the tapestry Penmarc'h were presented the following year in Montreal.
In the middle of a creative whirlwind, Adam died from a heart attack on August 27, 1967, at La Clarté near Perros-Guirec
, and lies in the cemetery of Mont-Saint-Michel, the theme of his last tapestry.
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...
. His work in these three areas is regarded as among the most extensive of the twentieth century.
Biography
Henri-Georges Adam was born in Paris on January 14, 1904, to a father from PicardyPicardy
This article is about the historical French province. For other uses, see Picardy .Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France...
and mother from Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine.-Demographics:The population can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season...
. During his childhood he spent his summers in Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo
Saint-Malo is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine.-Demographics:The population can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season...
and Saint-Servan
Saint-Servan
Saint-Servan is a town of western France, in Brittany, situated 2 miles from the ferry port of St Malo. It is renowned for its lovely shops and restaurants....
. In 1918, after attending a watchmaking school, he started working the studio of his father, a jeweler and goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
in the Marais district of Paris, where he learned to carve and later to engrave. Then in 1925 he took evening classes at a drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
school in Montparnasse
Montparnasse
Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...
and after a stint at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1926 became a drawing professor of the Ville de Paris
Ville de Paris
Ville de Paris may refer to:* Paris* A number of ships of the French Navy named Ville de Paris. See French ship Ville de Paris* HMS Ville de Paris...
. Beginning in 1928 he began to make satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
sketches and political caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
s. "His spirit of cynical and apocalyptic derision is of the same nature as that of Rouault illustrating Miserere de Guerre. Anarchist, pacifist, antimilitarist, Adam reverses all taboos. He does not care about the myths of his country, of his family or his religion", notes Waldemar George (Adam, 1968, p. 30).
In 1934 Adam got involved with engraving, etching, the use of the burin
Burin
Burin from the French burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably...
and the environment of the surrealists
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
, Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
. He made his first exhibit in 1934, with a preface by Jean Cassou
Jean Cassou
Jean Cassou was a French writer, art critic, poet and member of the French Resistance during World War II.- Biography :Jean Cassou was born at Deusto, near Bilbao,...
in 1936 after which he began his violently impressionistic engravings entitled, Désastres de la guerre, in response to the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. In 1936 he joined the Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, where he met painters Maurice Estrève, Alfred Manessier
Alfred Manessier
Alfred Manessier was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
, Edouard Pignon, and Arpad Szenes
Árpád Szenes
Árpád Szenes was a Hungarian-Jewish abstract painter who worked in France.He and Portuguese-French painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva married in 1930 and became French citizens in the 1950s...
. He took part, along with Picasso, Matisse, Rouault, Dufy, Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, Chagall, Chaim Soutine
Chaim Soutine
Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....
, Zadkine, Roger Bissière
Roger Bissière
Roger Bissière was a French artist who painted in the abstract Tachisme style. He was born in Villeréal, Lot-et-Garonne, and died in Boissièrettes...
and Edouard Pignon in the exhibition Quatorze Juillet by Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
at the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, in which Picasso painted the curtain scene.
Mobilized in 1939 and taken prisoner, Adam was assigned as the auxiliary nurse at the hospital Saint-Jacques de Besançon, where he made many drawings of surgeons, soldiers and the wounded. He was eventually released at the end of 1940. He tackled sculpting in 1942, and in October 1943 he, along with Gaston Diehl
Gaston Diehl
Gaston Diehl was a French professor of art history and an art critic.-Biography:Diehl graduated from the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie in 1934 and the Ecole du Louvre in 1936...
, Leon Gischia, Jean Le Moal
Jean Le Moal
Jean Le Moal was a French painter of the new Paris school, designer of stained glass windows, and one of the founder members of the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
, Manessier, Pignon, Gustave Singier
Gustave Singier
Gustave Singier was a Belgian non-figurative painter active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery....
, became one of the fifteen founders of the Salon du Mai. That same year he created the sets and costumes, masks and two four meter-tall statues for Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's Les Mouches which Charles Dullin
Charles Dullin
Charles Dullin was a French actor, theater manager and director.-Life:Dullin was a student of Jacques Copeau...
assembled. He also carved Le Gisant, a tribute to the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
and martyrs, which would be exhibited in the Salon de la Libération. Adam became friends with Picasso, who lent him his studio in the rue des Grands-Augustins where he worked more at ease until 1950. Between 1948 and 1949, at his Boisgeloup estate, near Gisors
Gisors
Gisors is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located northwest from the center of Paris.Gisors, together with the neighbouring communes of Trie-Château and Trie-la-Ville, form an urban area of 12,669 inhabitants...
, he realized among other works, Le Grand Nu conserved by the Musée national d'art moderne
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
.
In 1949 Adam presented a comprehensive exhibition of his works, frequently of women's sleek forms, at the gallery Aimé Maeght
Aimé Maeght
Aimé Maeght was a French art collector and editor. He founded the Galerie Maeght in Paris and New York, and the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence near Nice ....
and in 1952 his copper engravings based on the year's theme of the Month, went on display in the bookstore-gallery La Hune. From 1950 to 1955, he was a professor of design at Antony
Antony
Antony is an English language variant of Anthony. It can refer to:People* Mark Antony, Roman politician and general* Antony Flew, a contemporary British philosopher* Antony Gormley, a contemporary British sculptor...
, a college town which today bears his name. During 1950, he instructed many painters and sculptors (including Raphy).
From 1955 the first retrospective of his work was organized at the Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
In 1956 and 1957, Adam developed one of his most famous suites of engravings, Dalles, Sable et Eau showing scenes of the sea, sand and granite of Penmarc'h, and a series of sculptures named Mutationes marines. He made new tapestries for the French Embassy
Embassy of France in Washington
The Embassy of France in Washington, D.C. is the primary French diplomatic mission to the United States.It is located at 4101 Reservoir Road, Northwest, Washington, D.C., just north of Georgetown University. The embassy opened in 1984. With some 400 staffers, it is France's largest foreign embassy...
in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1957, Meridien for the Palace of UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
in 1958, and Galaxie for Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1961.
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, a set of sculptures and tapestries for l'église de Moutier in Switzerland, for which Manessier created the windows (1963–1967), Mur, a 22 meter-long wall, and La Feuille for the lycée de Chantilly (1965), Trois pointes effilées for the college-city of La Flèche
La Flèche
La Flèche is a municipality located in the French department of Sarthe and the region of Pays de la Loire in the Loire Valley. This is the sub-prefecture of the South-Sarthe, the chief district and the chief city of a canton. This is the second most populous city of the department. The city is part...
(1965), a monument for Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
(1960–1966), La Grande étrave for the house of culture of Thonon (1966), Fontaine for the city of Bihorel-les-Rou (1966), Le Minotaure for the college-city of Segré
Segré
Segré is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.-Geography:The town of Segré is the most southern part of the commune, where the Verzée flows into the Oudon River.-External links:*...
(1967), L'Oiseau de granit and La Grande Table de conférence for the lycée technique de Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-History:Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who evangelized the region in the 6th century and established an oratory there...
(1967).
In 1959 Adam was appointed professor of engraving at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux-Arts de Paris and later head professor of the workshop of monumental sculpture. He installed his own workshop and presses in La Ville du Bois, near Montlhéry
Montlhéry
Montlhéry is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located from Paris.Inhabitants of Montlhéry are known as Montlhériens.-History:...
while many of his exhibitions were presented in museums in France and Europe. In 1961 Adam developed a series of sculptures entitled Cryptogrammes. A retrospective of Adam's work was presented in 1966 at the Musée national d'art moderne in Paris with a foreword by Bernard Dorival. Three of his sculptures and the tapestry Penmarc'h were presented the following year in Montreal.
In the middle of a creative whirlwind, Adam died from a heart attack on August 27, 1967, at La Clarté near Perros-Guirec
Perros-Guirec
Perros-Guirec is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Perros-Guirec are called perrosiens.-Tourism:...
, and lies in the cemetery of Mont-Saint-Michel, the theme of his last tapestry.