1977, in the studio – Lacroix at work on a clay © Chris Card Fuller

Brief biography

 

Georges Armand Lacroix, french sculptor (1907-1982) was born in Paris. Because he loved to draw and paint and was talented, his parents inscribed him at the Applied Arts School of Paris (École supérieure d’Arts Appliqués), then he studied at the Decorative Arts School of Paris (École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs ) and afterwards he was a student at the “École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris”.

He obtains lots of prizes and grants. The city of Paris prize (1932), a State Travel Grant (1935), the Casa Velasquez prize (1936), the Madagascar prize (1956), the city of Paris Silver Medal (1973).

Sculptures of nude persons in majority feminine represent a lot of his works. He sculpts in front of a living model. Because he is a very sensitive artist he seeks to express the peculiarity of the bodies showing through their beauty and their personality. He does himself the casts when sculptures are little, cuts the stone principally for commissions, and he himself, realizes most of the time, the patinas of his bronze.

Discreet representative of the figurative art of sculpture of the XXth century, his works have been exhibited in Paris, at the Autumn Show, at the “Petit Palais”, at the “Grand Palais”, the Galliera Museum, the French Artist Show, the Comparison Show, the Rodin Museum, the “Palais Royal” Galleries.

He sculpts important public commissions. The last public commission was in 1977 “Sea breeze” that can be seen in Paris in the gardens of the “Cercle interallié”.

In parallel with his artistic activity he will be from 1949 until his retirement, a teacher of “Applied Arts”. He exercises this job with a lot of pleasure, enjoying the contact with his pupils and the transmission of a knowledge.

From 1970, he devotes himself to the fight for saving the “Cité Fleurie”, in Paris. In that place there are 29 studios which are threatened to be destroyed. From the beginning of the creation of the Association of defence, he is president of it, until his death in 1982.

During the fight for its saving, he opens the door of his studio to thousands of visitors, doing it with passion and pleasure, for the cause of the artists of the “Cité Fleurie”.

During all that troublesome period he goes on painting and sculpting and at that time sculpts busts for private individuals.