Pyrenean bear sitting - Georges GUYOT (1885-1972)

Sculpture in bronze with a nuanced black patina
Signed " Guyot " on the base
Cast by Martin Canal, without founder mark

France
circa 1935

Height 18,4 cm
Width 17 cm
Depth 18 cm

Biography :
Georges Lucien Guyot (1885-1973) known as Georges Guyot was a French animal artist. From an early age, he showed artistic abilities, but the modest conditions of his parents did not allow him to study art. He was doing his apprenticeship with a woodcarver. Guyot then excelled at copying works of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but soon he showed a special attraction for nature. This attraction led him to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris where he could study wild animals and translated his observations into sculpture and painting.

As a famous figure of Montmartre, he was the host of the Bateau-Lavoir from the time of Cubism. In 1931, Georges Guyot joined the group of "The Twelve", created by François Pompon and Jane Poupelet, gathering sculptors like Marcel Lémar, Paul Jouve, André Margat, Jean-Claude de Saint-Marceaux, Georges Hilbert, or even the painter Adrienne Jouclard. The group exhibited, from April 8 to May 8, 1932, in the lounges of the hotel Ruhlmann and, a second time, from March 1 to 31, 1933, still at Ruhlmann. But the death of Jane Poupelet in 1932 and that of François Pompon in 1933 put an end to the association.

Upon the French Liberation, Georges Guyot was elected mayor of Neuville-sur-Oise. Very popular in his day, however, he must wait until 1970 to have a solo exhibition devoted to his works. He occupied Picasso's studio at Bateau-Lavoir where he died in 1973.