Atelier Henri-Marius Petit

The dispersal of his studio will provide an opportunity to reconsider an artist, sculptor above all, who had his hour of fame and enjoyed a fine official career.

The sale will feature 160 pieces from Henri-Marius Petit’s studio, all preserved by his descendants. Estimates range from €200 to €1 ,500 , to enable everyone to participate. The artist began his career in the 1930s, a decade marked by neoclassicism and art deco, a style he naturally adopted. La Maternité, presented at the 1934 Salon des artistes français, won him a silver medal; its purchase by the City of Metz – as a “Monument aux Mères françaises” – paved the way for competitions to create monumental commemorative works : Montélimar, Metz, Clermont-Ferrand. In 1939, he was commissioned to create the Cinq Continents, 5-meter-high gilded plaster figures for the League of Nations Pavilion at the New York International Exposition that same year. His career seemed to have taken off, but the Second World War decided otherwise. First it was the Prix de Rome, for which he had prepared, that was cancelled. Once peace had returned, he became a teacher, worked in the sacred arts, and returned to the graphic arts, with a particular technique, drawn and engraved slates. Some of his original plaster casts were donated to the Musée des Années 30 in Boulogne-Billancourt, and some are on display there.