Pierre Blanc
Born in 1902.
Died in 1986.
He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva as a student of Maurice Sarkissoff from 1919 to 1924, then moved to Paris in October 1925, where he lived until 1939.
After completing his studies, he returned to Switzerland and collaborated on the decoration of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s headquarters in Lausanne from 1924 to 1925. In Paris, he became acquainted with François Pompon, worked as a praticien in the studio of José and Jean Martel, and developed a taste for animal sculpture, nurtured by observing animals at the Jardin des Plantes and the Vincennes Zoo. He took part in several Paris salons: the Salon d’Automne from 1928 to 1931 (where he exhibited, among other works, two bronzes, Autruche and Bison), the Salon des artistes décorateurs (1930), and the Salon des Tuileries (1930, 1931, 1938).
Mobilised in 1939, he left France and settled permanently in Lausanne. Back in Switzerland, he received municipal commissions, including a bronze boar for the Parc du Denantou, and in 1962 the city of Lausanne made a studio available to him at the Orangerie in Parc Mon Repos. He later took part in the restoration of the porch of Lausanne Cathedral from 1970 to 1974.
In his personal life, he married Georgette Candiard in 1930; they had a daughter.
A sculptor and draughtsman, he focused his work on the representation of animals, allegorical subjects, and portraits. His interest in animal subjects, consolidated in Paris through the study of animals from life, is evident in the bronzes he exhibited (Autruche, Bison) and in public commissions such as the boar in the Parc du Denantou. Among the available documentary references are a SIKART notice (identifier 4002080) and an entry by Anne Zumbach Pastori on SIKART.
