Demétre Chiparus

Demétre Chiparus
Demétre Chiparus
Dumitru Haralamb Chipăruș
Born	16 September 1886; Bagneux Cemetery
Education	École des Beaux-Arts
Known for	Sculptures
Movement	Art Deco in Paris

Demétre Haralamb Chiparus (Romanian: Dumitru Haralamb Chipăruș; 16 September 1886 – 22 January 1947) was a Romanian sculptor of the Art Deco-era who lived and worked in Paris, France. He was one of the most important sculptors of the time.

Life

Demétre Chiparus, born as Dumitru Haralamb Chipăruș

Antonin Mercie and Jean Boucher.^[2] Demétre Chiparus died in 1947, suffering a stroke on returning from studying animals at the zoo in Vincennes.^[2] He was buried in Bagneux Cemetery

, just south of Paris.

Work

Early career

The first sculptures of Chiparus were created in the realistic style and were exhibited at the

chryselephantine

, to great effect. Most of his renowned works were made between 1914 and 1933. The first series of sculptures manufactured by Chiparus were the series of the children.

Later career

The mature style of Chiparus took shape beginning in the 1920s. His sculptures are remarkable for their bright and outstanding decorative effect. Dancers of the

Tutankhamen

's tomb was excavated.

Chiparus created one of the most iconic bronzes in 1928 called "Danseuse au cerceau" or "Ring Dancer" inspired in the famous and prodigious dancer Zoula de Boncza of the Parisian "Folies Bergère", a first dancer of The Belgrado Royal Opera and a Mime dancer of "l'Opéra-Comique" in Paris. Later in life de Boncza, a descendant of Polish nobility and one of Loie Fuller best students, created a book published in 1961: the dance method "La Danse classique sans barre". The book was published with texts from Eugène de Rijac and illustrations by Alexandre Berlant and Yvonne Breton.

He worked primarily with the Edmond Etling and Cie Foundry in Paris owned by

Schéhérazade.^[2]

The Salon

Chiparus rarely exhibited at the

Nazi persecution and World War II

, the foundries discontinued production of work by Chiparus. The economic situation of that time was not favorable to the development of decorative arts and circumstances for many sculptors worsened.

For a time in the early 1940s almost no works of Chiparus were sold but he continued sculpting for his own pleasure, depicting animals in the Art Deco style. At the 1942 Paris Salon, the plaster sculptures “Polar Bear” and “American Bison” were exhibited and in 1943 he showed a marble “Polar Bear” and plaster “Pelican”.

Style

Sculptures of Chiparus represent the classical manifestation of Art Deco style in decorative bronze ivory sculpture. Traditionally, four factors of influence over the creative activity of the artist can be distinguished:

motion pictures were among his more notable subjects and were typified by figures with a long, slender, stylized appearance. Some of his sculptures were directly inspired by Russian dancers.^[2]

For example, faces of “Persian Dance” figures reveal the likenesses of Nijinsky and Rubinstein, and the dress in “Starfish Girl” exactly reproduces the sketch for Goldfish's dress from the ballet “Underwater kingdom” by Lev Annensky. Chiparus could have been influenced by Russian ballets indirectly, through the performances of French music halls and cabarets which bore traces of the strong impact of Russian ballet. Quite often, Chiparus used the photos of Russian and French dancers, stars and models from fashion magazines of his time.

After the

tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922, the art of ancient Egypt and the East came to French fashion, and was also reflected in the creative activity of Chiparus. Several sculptures by Chiparus and Claire Colinet represent Queen Cleopatra

and Egyptian dancers. The sculptures of Chiparus reflect his time and 1920-1930s sentiment of "folle". Coming from the oldest French tradition of high-quality and extra-artistic decorative arts, the sculptures of Chiparus combine elegance and luxury, embodying the spirit of the Art Deco epoch.

Collector interest in the work of Chiparus appeared in the 1970s and has flourished since the 1990s. A major collection of Chiparus' work is on display in the permanent collection of

art nouveau and art deco museum in Salamanca, Espana

.

Death and legacy

Demétre Chiparus died in

Bagneux Cemetery

, just south of Paris. Chiparus is remembered as one of the most important artists of the Art Deco era.

Gallery

Tânără (Girl)
Dansatoare Egipteană (Egyptian Dancer)
Fetele (The Girls)
Dansatori Ruși (Russian Dancers)

References

^ "Dumitru Chipăruș – un maestru remarcabil al detaliilor în bronz" (in Romanian). 4 October 2015.
^
ISBN 978-1-85149-382-1
.

Sources

Alberto Shayo Chiparus - Master of Art Deco (Abbeville Press, Publishers 1993)
ISBN 1-55859-475-2

Victor Arwas. «Art deco» — London: 1992 [1]
Victor Arwas. «Art Deco Sculpture: Chryselephantine Statuettes of the Twenties and Thirties» — London: 1975 [2]
Bryan Catley. «Art Deco and other Figures» — Woodbridge, Suffolk: 1978 [3]
Alexey Witt. «Demetre Chiparus - the great sculptor of an era of the Art deco» - A. Witt & D. Leontyev, Moscow: 2015 [4]

External links

Gallery of sculptures Archived 2011-09-19 at the Wayback Machine
Examples of his works
Demétre Chiparus in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website

[1] "Dumitru Chipăruș – un maestru remarcabil al detaliilor în bronz" (in Romanian). 4 October 2015.

[Catley-2] 
ISBN 978-1-85149-382-1
.

[2]

Authority control databases
International	VIAF
National	France BnF data Germany United States
Artists	RKD Artists