Carpeaux, 1827-1875 : Un Sculpteur Pour L'empire

Prodigiously gifted and deeply tormented, Carpeaux was, by the brevity and the fulgurating nature of his career, the major figure of the renewal of French sculpture under the Second Empire. The son of a mason and a lace-maker from Valenciennes, he built an exceptional destiny closely linked to the reign of Napoleon III. Sculptor of movement, portraitist of the smile, familiar drawer of the court of the Tuileries, attentive observer of the truth of the street, Carpeaux will not cease, from Ugolin to The Dance of the Opera, to oscillate between tragedy and pleasure. This book proposes to rediscover the work of one of the greatest French sculptors of the 19th century, so much admired by Rodin, in all its aspects.

Exhibitions: New York, Metropolitan museum of art, 10 March-26 May 2014; Paris, Musée d'Orsay, 24 June-28 September 2014