Louis Chavignier (1922 - 1972) Giacometti

Louis Chavignier (1922-1972) French 

Title 'Tete de Giacometti' c. 1963.

Bronze signed and numbered 5/10.

Founder Susse Frs Paris

Born in 1922 in France, Chavignier entered the École des Beaux Arts in Toulouse in 1941, and his sculptural work soon became noticed, and he was awarded several major commissions and prizes during the 1950’s.  

In 1960 he was invited to participate in the XXX Venice Biennale where he met Giacometti, with whom he found an aesthetic kinship. The two became well acquainted and in 1963 Giacometti drew Chavignier's portrait and Chavignier sculpted a bust of Giacometti.

Together they collaborated on Miguel de Cervantes 'La Danse de Chateau' in 1962 with the majority of the engravings by Chavignier and the title page by Giacometti.

1961 held solo exhibitions in Switzerland and London.

1962 made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts, by this time he had established an  international reputation.

1965 Biennale Sao Paulo.

1967 French Pavilion of the Universal Exposition. 

1969 to 1972 he was professor of Sculpture at the École National des Beaux Arts, Paris, also teaching at l’UER d’Arts Plastiques, at La Sorbonne. 

He died at the age of fifty in 1972.

Throughout the 1970’s a number of important solo exhibitions and retrospectives of his work were held, including at Galerie Municipale, Vitry-sur-Seine, 1973; Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand, 1977; Maison des Arts, Montbeliard, 1979; Maison de la Culture, Orleans, 1979.  In 1982 the European Biennale of Sculpture paid tribute to his work; and more recently, the Centre Noirot at Arras held a retrospective in 1989; and also the Musée Zadkine in Paris in 1996.

This piece is a rare contemporary portrait of Giacometti by a leading artist which captures the likeness of its subject in a style reminiscent of his own.