Jean Cardot (20 July 1930 – 13 October 2020) was a French sculptor, born in

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; Franco-Provençal: ''Sant-Etiève''), also written St. Etienne, is a city and the prefecture of the Loire département, in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regi ...

, France. He is known for his monumental sculptures that depict political figures and that are designed to complement particular architectural settings (e.g. museums, promenades, public squares).

Career

From 1941 to 1956, Jean Cardot attended, first, the School of Fine Arts (

École de Beaux-Arts École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

) in Saint-Étienne, then that of Lyon, and finally the National School of Fine Arts in Paris ( École de Beaux-Arts de Paris) in the workshops of

Marcel Gaumont Marcel Gaumont was a French sculptor born on 27 January 1880 in Tours. He died in Paris on 20 November 1962. Biography Gaumont was a pupil at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studied under Louis-Ernest Barrias ...

and Alfred Janniot. After obtaining a second

Grand Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in 1956, he stayed at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid from 1957 to 1959. In 1961, Cardot was awarded the Prix Antoine Bourdelle for sculpture and accepted the post of professor at the School of Fine Arts in Lyon. He resigned from this post in 1964 in order to pursue a career as a full time sculptor. It is during this period that he received his first public commissions. In 1974, he was named head of the workshop on ‘taille directe’ (direct chiseling onto a raw material) at the School of Fine Arts of Paris (

Beaux-Arts de Paris The (), formally the (), is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level fine arts education and training. The art school, which is part of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is located on two sites: Saint-G ...

). In 1989, Cardot received the Prix Paul Baudry of the Taylor Foundation. He was elected a member of the

Académie des Beaux-Arts The (; ) is a French learned society based in Paris. It is one of the five academies of the . The current president of the academy (2021) is Alain-Charles Perrot, a French architect. Background The academy was created in 1816 in Paris as a me ...

on 9 November 1983 and president in 1992 and 1997. Jean Cardot is known for his monumental works that are closely tied to their architectural setting. In 1962, he produced the Madonna of Bouthéon, on the occasion of the centenary of the church Saint Laurent in

Andrézieux-Bouthéon Andrézieux-Bouthéon (; ) is a commune of the Loire department, France. It lies on the right bank of the river Loire, at its confluence with the river Furan, 13 km north of the city of Saint-Étienne. Population Sights * Le Château Bo ...

, France. In 1967, he sculpted the Dying Bull (''Taureau mourant''), a statue that he originally executed in clay and later recast in bronze, for a high school in Saint-Étienne. In 1969, his granite fountain sculpture was placed in the university hospital center of Saint-Étienne. In 1973-1975, his Monument to the Resistance and the Deportation of the Val-de Marne, in cast aluminum, chosen by competition, was erected in

Créteil Créteil () is a Communes of France, commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. Créteil is the ''préfecture'' (capital) of the Val-de-Marne Departments of France, dep ...

. In 1979, he also produced a sculpture representing a flock of sheep, exhibited in front of the

Cattenom nuclear power plant The Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located in Grand Est in the Cattenom commune, France, on the Moselle River between Thionville (7 km upstream) and Trier (48 km downstream). It is close to the city of Luxembou ...

in Moselle. Large public commissions occupied an essential place in Cardot’s work, much of which focused on monumental effigies of major political figures. He is best known for his statues in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

of Sir Winston Churchill, 1998, on the

Right Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...

of the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

in front of the

Petit Palais The (; ) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the Exposition Universelle (1900), 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...

and on Avenue Winston Churchill; of General

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free France, Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Re ...

2000 on the Champs-Elysées in front of the

Grand Palais The (; ), commonly known as the , is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, France. Construction of the began in 1897 following the demolitio ...

; and of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

2006 on the

Left Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...

of the Seine, facing the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

and the Musée de la Légion d'Honneur, by the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, formerly

Pont de Solférino Pont, meaning "bridge" in French, may refer to: Places France * Pont, Côte-d'Or, in the Côte-d'Or ''département'' * Pont-Bellanger, in the Calvados ''département'' * Pont-d'Ouilly, in the Calvados ''département'' * Pont-Farcy, in the Calva ...

References

External links

*
Personal site of the artist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardot, Jean 1930 births 2020 deaths 20th-century French sculptors French male sculptors 21st-century French sculptors 21st-century French male artists Artists from Saint-Étienne Members of the Académie des beaux-arts