Ever since the founding of her gallery, Jeanne Bucher knew how to appreciate, in the drawings of sculptors, the presence of a form still nascent in its essence and its magic. An exhibition of sculptures and drawings of Henri Laurens was held in the small rooms of the 9ter rue du Montparnasse, under the Occupation, in July 1942.
In 1951, Jean-François Jaeger exhibited the drawings of Chauvin. In the Fall of 2005, Véronique Jaeger exhibited the drawings of Dani Karavan, as well as the preparatory models for the creation of the artist’s 1-kilometer long environmental sculpture in Murou, Japan.

On the occasion of the Drawing Week in Paris, the gallery decided to spotlight drawings by sculptors, from Dubuffet to Shingu, and including Giacometti and Rodin, connected to varying degrees with the history of the gallery. The Giacometti drawing Bruno lisant dates from the time when Jeanne Bucher was exhibiting his works, in 1929. La Fortune (c. 1906) by Rodin corresponds to the period during which Pierre Bucher, Jeanne’s brother, organized, for the Societé des Amis des Arts in Strasbourg, the French Exhibition of 1907 where Rodin, Besnard, and Cottet were exhibited, among others.
The exhibition resonates with important events in 2018 for several of these artists, including Dani Karavan, Jean-Paul Philippe, Susumu Shingu and Paul Wallach.

Preoccupied with questions of line and volume, contour and density, linearity and plasticity, as well as fullness and emptiness, the sculptors set to work drawing in search of the expression of volumes and ideas, put on paper via shadows and light, according to the individual techniques of each. Would not the use of crayon for Giacometti be the necessary, permanent means for him to “see,” and the blankness of the paper the most immediate place, the most troubled also, for an “endless” — since it was always started anew — attempt to capture in space and light the living, elusive presence of the being or the object that was in front of him?

Whether drawing is, for the sculptor, the sketch of a future work, or an entity of its own, the soul of the creator is therein eminently incarnate, without recourse to reliefs or molds.

This exhibition of sculptors’ drawings highlights the clear link between the sheet of paper and the completed work, putting front and center, via the most rigorous possible test, the tension of the volume as it moves towards the planar surface, or the incarnation of a sculptural apparatus as the vehicle for a unique and specific idea.

 

Eugène Dodeigne, Le poing, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Antonella Zazzera, Studio Armonico, 2009
Graphite on paper
14,4 × 10,4 in
Jean Chauvin, Untitled, 1920
Red chalk on paper
19,5 × 12,4 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,8 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Susumu Shingu, Etudes, 2006
Ink on paper
9,5 × 14 in
Mark Di Suvero, Etude pour Beethoven IV, 1992
India ink and silver pen on paper
41,8 × 29,5 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1961
Charcoal on paper
25,6 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Antonella Zazzera, Studio Armonico, 2009
Graphite on paper
14,4 × 10,4 in
Jean Dubuffet, Portrait d'Armand Salacrou, 31 décembre 1917
Red chalk on paper
12 × 9 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Private collection
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,8 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Mark Di Suvero, Etude pour Beethoven II, 1992
India ink and silver pen on paper
41,7 × 29,5 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1961
Charcoal on cardboard
25,6 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Jean Chauvin, Untitled, 1920
Charcoal on paper
12,6 × 9,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Auguste Rodin, La Fortune, 1906
Graphite, blending stump and light watercolour on vellum paper
12,8 × 9,8 in
Courtesy Hélène Bailly Gallery, Paris
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,1 × 19,6 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Dani Karavan, Tente pyramidale, 2005
Pencil on paper
30 × 22,4 in
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,6 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Jean Chauvin, Untitled, 1920
Charcoal on paper
12,6 × 9,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Jean Arp, Untitled, 1920
Ink and pencil on paper
10,8 × 8,4 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,6 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Jean Chauvin, Untitled, 1920
Charcoal on paper
12,6 × 9,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,7 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi
Eugène Dodeigne, Untitled, 1963
Charcoal on paper
25,2 × 19,8 in
Photograph by Jean-Louis Losi

practical informations

St Germain Space

By appointment
53 rue de Seine
75 006 Paris – France
T +33 1 42 72 60 42
F +33 1 42 72 60 49
info@jeannebucherjaeger.com