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Lot Essay
Le Coureur is a strikingly elongated portrait of a long distance runner lost in his own private space and thoughts. Like many of Richier's sculptures from the 1950s, it powerfully expresses the sense of the existential angst current during the post-war years in Europe.
As Simone de Beauvoir recalled about France in this Post-War period, "The war was over, but it remained in our hands like a great unwanted corpse, there was no place on earth to bury it."
Originally intended as a public statue for the Jean Bouin Stadium, Le Coureur departs from a traditional sporting sculpture in the way in which this emaciated and seemingly unathletic figure with its tense self-preocuppied pose conjurs up a sense of mental anguish and escape. Richier's decision to use Lyrot, a particularly slender professional model (also the model for the artist's sculpture Griffu of 1952) emphasises her intention to question the prevailing image of the heroic sporting figure who is in control of his or her destiny in favour of drawing a direct parallel between the intense solitude of the long distance runner and the solitude of man's existence.
With its heavily textured surface and its tense febrile energy, Le Coureur seems to suggest the indomitable human spirit animating a highly material form and activating it in accordance with its will into the act of running. Like Richier's celebrated standing figures from this period, Le Coureur is a work that dramatically asserts the spirit of human survival and emancipation in the aftermath of a holocaust.
As Simone de Beauvoir recalled about France in this Post-War period, "The war was over, but it remained in our hands like a great unwanted corpse, there was no place on earth to bury it."
Originally intended as a public statue for the Jean Bouin Stadium, Le Coureur departs from a traditional sporting sculpture in the way in which this emaciated and seemingly unathletic figure with its tense self-preocuppied pose conjurs up a sense of mental anguish and escape. Richier's decision to use Lyrot, a particularly slender professional model (also the model for the artist's sculpture Griffu of 1952) emphasises her intention to question the prevailing image of the heroic sporting figure who is in control of his or her destiny in favour of drawing a direct parallel between the intense solitude of the long distance runner and the solitude of man's existence.
With its heavily textured surface and its tense febrile energy, Le Coureur seems to suggest the indomitable human spirit animating a highly material form and activating it in accordance with its will into the act of running. Like Richier's celebrated standing figures from this period, Le Coureur is a work that dramatically asserts the spirit of human survival and emancipation in the aftermath of a holocaust.