« Germaine Richier created The Mountain in clay, plaster, and found wood. It was among the works that she decided to show for the first time at the Musée National d'Art moderne in Paris in 1956. She began the sculpture in 1955, describing it to me in a tracing in the sand on the beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer : "I'm in the process of making a really large piece for my exhibition. When it is cast, we must produce a photomontage of it by the sea. Nardone posed for the back of the main figure. The sculpture was a huge effort, with complicated processes and a constant reference to the plumb line. Its creation was so complex that Richier's caster, after producing the plaster, came to help her. As a development of her notion of mobility, Richier planned the work in parts that could be assembled. This also facilitated the moving of the sculpture. The various elements were laid out unmounted in the garden to study the idea. The finished work consists of three parts. The two figures are linked to each other by a hole in the base of the basin of the larger figure. Its left arm could be removed and replaced via a system of cotter-pins. A drainage hole was added to the torso's basin so that rainwater could escape, should the sculpture be exhibited in the open. Richier presented The Mountain at her 1956 exhibition, in polished natural bronze as opposed to a dark patinated, since she wanted this golden mass to add a note of color in the midst of her other, dark bronzes. Representing the union of man and nature, The Mountain conjures up once more the intensity of Richier's dialogue with sculptural form, whether generously-proportioned or slender, and iterates the life of her lines, including the long piece of sea-worn drift-wood, found on the beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, which connects the two figures. However this work, in its power, its beauty and inspiration, also expresses the struggle of life, the courage, the generosity of the sculptor, and the mystery of her aesthetic. When the critic Denys Chevalier, on a visit to her studio before the exhibition, inquired as to the origins of the title, Richier replied: "Because it represents a sort of peak", she replied. This 'peak,' one of the many in her oeuvre, signals both the arrival at a destination and probably a new departure, marking the beginning of a new phase, when she would do "something else." Between 1957 and 1959, whilst in the Midi, she would often tell me: "when I return, I want to revolutionize my sculpture, I want to do something else." »
F. Guiter, excerpt from the exhibition catalogue "Richier", Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 2006, p. 108
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Germaine Richier, October - December 1956, no. 77, pl. XII, XIII (another example illustrated, another example on the cover). Paris, Musée Rodin, Sculpture Française contemporaine et de L'Ecole de Paris, no. 52, pl. XIV (another example exhibited). Antibes, Musée Picasso, Germaine Richier, July - September 1959, no. 63 (another example exhbited). Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Centro Internazionale delle Arti e del Costume, Dalla natura all'arte, 1960, no. 4 (another example illustrated). Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich, Germaine Richier, June - July 1963, no. 85 (another example exhibited). Paris, Grand Palais, Jean Paulhan à travers ses peintres, February - April 1974, no. 677, pl. XXIII (another example illustrated). Humlebæck, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Germaine Richier, August - September 1988, no. 34 (another example exhibited). Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Germaine Richier: Rétrospective, April - June 1996, no. 88, pp. 159-165 (another example illustrated in color with details and in the artist's studio). Bremen, Gerhard-Marcks-Stiftung, Germaine Richier: allein das Menschliche zählt, November 2007 - February 2008, pp. 37-38 (another example illustrated). Bern, Kunstmuseum Bern, Germaine Richier: Rétrospective, November 2013 - April 2014, no. 74, pp. 142-143 (another example illustrated in color).
PROVENANCE:
The Estate of the Artist
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS:
Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul, France
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hanover, Germany
LITERATURE:
W. George, "Germaine Richier," Prisme des arts, Paris, April 1956, no. 2.
B. Milleret, "Envoûtement de Germaine Richier," Les Nouvelles littéraires, Paris, October 11, 1956.
A. Chastel, "Au musée d'Art moderne:' Germaine Richier: la puissance et le malaise'," Le Monde, Paris, October 13, 1956.
B. Butler, "Art and Artists, 'International Museum Week'," New York Herald Tribune, Paris, October 17, 1956.
D. Chevalier, "Sculpture Encore: 'Dans son atelier, vaste forêt de platres et de bronzes, Germaine Richier, chef d'école, sculpte les grands mythes sylvestres'," Femme, Paris, October-November 1956, pp. 81-83 (another example illustrated).
G. Limbour, "La vie des arts, 'Le pouce de Germaine Richier'," France Observateur, Paris, November 1, 1956.
P. Chatard, "Sculpture: 'Germaine Richier," Nouvelle gauche, Paris, November 18 - December 1956.
M. Conil-Lacoste, "Chroniques: 'Germaine Richier ou la confusion des règnes," Cahiers du sud, Marseille, February 1957, pp. 307-311.
G. Limbour, "Personnages imaginaires," Lettres nouvelles, Paris, June 17, 1959, pp. 31-32.
R. Charmet, "Germaine Richier: une oeuvre d'une humanité déchirée," Arts, Paris, August 5-11, 1959.
C. Roger-Marx, "Cette héritière inspirée des grands maîtres, Germaine Richier," Le Figaro littéraire, Paris, August 8, 1959.
M. Seuphor, "Germaine Richier," La sculpture de ce siècle, dictionnaire de la sculpture moderne, Griffon, Neuchâtel, 1959, pp. 109-118 and pp. 225-353.
J. Cassou, Germaine Richier, New York: Universe Books, 1961.
H. Debrunner, "Die Plastikerin Germaine Richier: Große Retrospektive im Kunsthaus Zürich," Züricher Spiegel, Zürich, June 20, 1963.
R. Dor de la Souchère, "Préface," Germaine Richier (1904-1959), Paris: Galerie Creuzevault,1966.
R. Varia, "Un poet tragic," Secolul 20, Bucharest, Winter 1968, no. 3.
E. Crispolti, Germaine Richier, I maestri della scultura, Milan: Fratelli Fabres, 1968, no. 65, pp. 50-52.
M. Conil-Lacoste, "Richier," Nouveau dictionnaire de la sculpture moderne, Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1970, pp. 262-264.
J. Paulhan, "Dix lettres à Marcel Jouhandeau: 'Touchant Germaine Richier'," Jean Paulhan a travers ses peintres, exh. cat., Paris: Musées Nationaux, no. 58, p. 72.
J. M. Dunoyer, "Jean Paulhan à travers ses peintres," Le Monde, Paris, February 7, 1974.
Brassaï, "Germaine Richier," Les Artistes de ma vie, Paris: Denoël, Paris, 1982, p. 178.
I. Jianou, G. Xurigura, and A. Lardera, "Germaine Richier," La Sculpture moderne, Paris: Arted, 1982, p. 178.
P. Restany, "L'objet de la chair," Les années 50, exh. cat., Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1988, pp. 234-239.
P. Restany, "Germaine Richier le grand art de la statuaire," Germaine Richier, exh. cat., Humlebæk: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, pp. 8-17.
E. Lebovici, "Lieux: 'L'atelier de Germaine Richier vu par Pierre-Olivier Deschampes'," Beaux-arts magazine, Paris, November 1989, no. 73, pp. 94-99.
F. Montreynaud, "Germaine Richier, L'Ouragane," Le xx siècle des femmes, Paris: Nathan, 1989, pp. 366-367.
I. Gale, "Inside the bronze menagerie: 'Germaine Richier's sculptures were half insect, half-human. Iain Gale visits the studio of an outsider in post-war Paris'," The Independent, London, June 8, 1993.