LÉON-ERNEST DRIVIER (Grenoble, 1878 - Paris 1951). "Maternity". Bronze. Signed. Exhibitions

LÉON-ERNEST DRIVIER (Grenoble, 1878 - Paris 1951).
"Maternity".
Bronze.
Signed.
Exhibitions: "European sculpture of the 20th century", European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), Barcelona, 2014.
Measurements: 62 cm.
In this theme we observe, through an affectionate and completely familiar optic, two perfectly blended characters. A voluptuous woman, exempt from her attire, lifts up a small child who squirms in her arms. The tenderness and complicity between mother and child awaken the viewer's deepest sensations, as well as the sculptor's most human and sensitive side.
An illustrator and sculptor, Léon-Ernest Drivier entered the École des Beaux-Arts on a scholarship. His teacher there was Louis-Ernest Barrias. From 1907 he worked in Auguste Rodin's studio. He was friends with the sculptors Auguste de Niederhausern, Gaston Schnegg, Jane Poupelet and Antoine Bourdelle, among others, with whom he formed "la Bande à Schnegg", who reacted to Rodin's unfinished and sfumato works with a more classical and synthetic style. His first period was akin to neo-Romanticism, and then he moved towards the neoclassicism of Charles Despiau. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1943.