On April 8th, as part of its Spring Modern Art 1900-1950 sale, Artcurial will highlight the works of two sculptors from the first half of the 20th century: Catalan-born artist Richard Guino and French sculptor René Iché. Both artists, with singular careers, have recently been the subject of major retrospectives in France: Guino Renoir, la couleur de la sculpture at the Musée Hyacinthe Rigaud in Perpignan (2023) and Iché, l’art en lutte, showcased between 2023 and 2024 at La Piscine Museum in Roubaix, the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper.

Born in 1890, Richard Guino trained in Barcelona before joining Aristide Maillol’s studio in Paris in 1910. By 1912, he was exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs and the Salon de la Nationale. At just 22 years old, he was entrusted by Maurice Denis with creating the reliefs Le Chant and La Danse at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, still visible today alongside Antoine Bourdelle’s sculpted decorations. 

Like the Nabis, Guino rejected rigid artistic boundaries, seamlessly transitioning between disciplines, from sculpture to drawing, engraving to painting, bas-relief to ceramics.

In 1913, Russian collector Ivan Morozov acquired La Vendangeuse, Guino’s first monumental figure. His exceptional talent soon led him to collaborate with Auguste Renoir, becoming his sculptor from 1913 to 1918. However, Guino was far more than just Renoir’s craftsman—despite being wrongly reduced to this role by critics.

After World War I, Guino embraced the Art Deco movement, regularly exhibiting at Galerie Hébrard. His work, striking a delicate balance between classicism and modernity, evokes a dreamlike Antiquity, where figures are arranged in a masterful eurythmy. The 19 works presented in this sale—bronze sculptures, drawings, and ceramics—all come from the artist’s descendants, illustrating his exceptional sense of composition and form.

The trajectory of René Iché (1897-1954) is vastly different. Profoundly shaped by the trauma of World War I, Iché sought to infuse his art with moral engagement, creating sculptures that resonated in both public and private spaces. His work became a defining force in French figurative art between the 1930s and 1950s.

A contemporary of Apollinaire and Max Jacob, and trained under Antoine Bourdelle, Iché developed his first major works—L’Homme succombant and Les Lutteurs—in Montparnasse. In post-war Paris, he was drawn to the Surrealist movement, as reflected in L’Inconnue de la Seine, later reinterpreted by Man Ray, and his masks of Breton and Éluard. By the 1920s, Iché was exhibiting at Zborowski, Louis Carré, and Bernheim-Jeune.

Two decades later, as an active member of the French Resistance, Iché created La Déchirée, the Marianne of the Resistance, which he later presented to General de Gaulle in London. From the 1930s to the 1950s, his sculptures became powerful psychological studies and manifestos, reflecting an urgent need to break free from historical trauma.

As Bernard Blistène aptly describes, "his works are not just ideological statements but an unrelenting quest to escape the terror of history." His Déchirée (1940) embodies this struggle, as do his Guernica (1937)—a haunting, skeletal masterpiece—and Les Lutteurs (1923-1924). These are sculptures that, in Pascal’s words, leave you irrevocably “embarked.”

For the first time at public auction, a major ensemble of works by René Iché—including marble and bronze sculptures, as well as a significant collection of nude drawings—will be presented. Coming from a French collection closely linked to the artist’s family, this selection shines a new light on Iché’s bold and committed artistic vision.