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Lot Essay
ÉDOUARD MARCEL SANDOZ: FROM SCIENTIFIC STUDY TO STYLIZED FORM
Swiss-born sculptor Édouard Marcel Sandoz worked adeptly across media, capturing both man and beast in stone, wood, and ceramic, yet his cast bronze animals are undoubtedly among his most acclaimed and best loved works. Between 1900 and 1903, Sandoz studied sculpture and ceramics at Geneva’s École des Arts Industriels where he twice won the school’s first prize for ceramics. In 1904, the artist traveled to Paris to attend the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
In the tradition of animaliers—animal painters and sculptors—Sandoz rooted his work in scientific study; he endowed many pieces with a realist energy but also, like his contemporary François Pompon, frequently deployed Art Deco’s stylized volumes and smooth surfaces. These creature creations, including those offered in the following group from a Private Swiss Collection, at once evoke zoological accuracy and portray their subjects with a subtle humor, each animal possessed of its own whimsical interiority. The Singe (lot 28M) twists playfully, creating a bold geometry with its curling tail; the Poisson-boeuf (lot 30M) glides on dry land, its fantail poised to propel its horned head forward; the Merle d’Afrique (lot 29M) caws obstreperously, wings spread and ready to ascend. Sandoz is still celebrated for his sensitive translations of animal life into plastic form, a legacy he cemented through the establishment of the Société Française des Animaliers in 1933.
Swiss-born sculptor Édouard Marcel Sandoz worked adeptly across media, capturing both man and beast in stone, wood, and ceramic, yet his cast bronze animals are undoubtedly among his most acclaimed and best loved works. Between 1900 and 1903, Sandoz studied sculpture and ceramics at Geneva’s École des Arts Industriels where he twice won the school’s first prize for ceramics. In 1904, the artist traveled to Paris to attend the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
In the tradition of animaliers—animal painters and sculptors—Sandoz rooted his work in scientific study; he endowed many pieces with a realist energy but also, like his contemporary François Pompon, frequently deployed Art Deco’s stylized volumes and smooth surfaces. These creature creations, including those offered in the following group from a Private Swiss Collection, at once evoke zoological accuracy and portray their subjects with a subtle humor, each animal possessed of its own whimsical interiority. The Singe (lot 28M) twists playfully, creating a bold geometry with its curling tail; the Poisson-boeuf (lot 30M) glides on dry land, its fantail poised to propel its horned head forward; the Merle d’Afrique (lot 29M) caws obstreperously, wings spread and ready to ascend. Sandoz is still celebrated for his sensitive translations of animal life into plastic form, a legacy he cemented through the establishment of the Société Française des Animaliers in 1933.