GEORGES LUCIEN GUYOT 1885:1972

BEAUTIFUL WATERCOLOR CIRCA20. TITLED "CONFLANS"...
THIS GREAT ANIMAL ARTIST WAS ALSO A VERY BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPER...

Georges-Lucien Guyot was born on December 10, 1885 in Paris in a modest environment that did not allow him - despite obvious gifts - to pursue artistic studies. Also, and as soon as his school certificate was in hand, he was placed as an apprentice with a wood sculptor in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. A diligent student, he showed a certain interest in the study of nature, which he continued by tirelessly drawing the different residents of the enclosures of the Jardin des Plantes. His vocation as an artist coming into contradiction with the profession of sculptor for furniture, Guyot was faced with a choice by his father when he was 17 years old: to train freely for a year before joining the army and to be free to choose your life. The young man therefore spent an entire year studying at the Natural History Museum, the affection of the staff giving him access to the dissection laboratories where he could observe wild animals up close in their smallest anatomical details.
In 1904 and as agreed, Georges-Lucien Guyot joined the army, in the 39th infantry in Rouen. The city is home to a School of Fine Arts, the young man obtains permission from his general to attend evening classes. And it was within these courses and in 1906 that an event took place that would change the career of the young artist: the installation of a ceramic kiln at the École des Beaux-Arts. In fact, Guyot then executed a trial - and modeled from memory - a bear in the ground…. which turned out to be of such quality that a professor suggested that its creator send it to the Salon des Artistes Français after cooking. The Salon accepted this first participation, and the bear would become a recurring figure in the artist's statuary.

Once demobilized and after a few subsidiary jobs, Georges-Lucien Guyot devoted himself entirely to sculpture and drawing in 1909, exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants and Automne as well as at the Salon des Tuileries where his works of tender realism met some success. Interrupted by the War (Guyot returned to civilian life in 1917), his artistic career resumed in 1918 when he settled in Montmartre at the Bateau-Lavoir. He then experienced an extremely fruitful period, exhibiting his sculptures, his paintings influenced by Cubism and his animal drawings in numerous galleries[2].
In 1931, Guyot joined the group of Douze Animaliers Français founded by François Pompon, whose public exhibitions in the salons of the Hôtel Ruhlmann (in April-May 1932 and March 1933) offered him a platform in which to express his style. The artist thus found his audience and received numerous orders for monumental sculptures from the State and municipalities such as the Brown Bear from the Vincennes Zoo (commissioned in 1938 and today exhibited at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plants), the Horses for the Trocadéro fountain (in 1937), the Bull of Laguiole (in 1937) or the Boar of Conches (1957).
He worked at the same time for the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres from 1929 to 1950, where he created numerous models.
Knight then Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1950, Guyot was also the first sculptor to receive the Edouard Marcel Sandoz Prize in 1972. The end of his life was overshadowed by the fire at the Bateau Lavoir on May 12, 1970, which destroyed his workshop and all that it contains of sculptures, paintings, drawings, animal skeletons and souvenirs… Guyot was then 85 years old and would never completely recover. He died three years later, on December 31, 1972.

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