Henri Georges Adam

Henri-Georges Adam (14 January 1904 – 27 August 1967) was a French engraver and non-figurative sculptor of the École de Paris, who was also involved in the creation of numerous monumental tapestries. His work in these three areas is regarded as among the most extensive of the twentieth century.

Early life

Henri-Georges Adam was born in Paris on 14 January 1904, to a father from Picardy and mother from Saint-Malo. During his childhood he spent his summers in Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan. In 1918, after attending a watchmaking school, Adam started working the studio of his father, a jeweler and goldsmith in the Marais district of Paris, where he learned to carve and later to engrave.

Training and education

In 1925 Adam took evening classes at a drawing school in Montparnasse and after a stint at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1926, became a drawing professor of the Ville de Paris. Beginning in 1928, Adam began to make satirical sketches and political caricatures. "His spirit of cynical and apocalyptic derision is of the same nature as that of Rouault illustrating ''Miserere de Guerre''. Anarchist, pacifist, antimilitarist, Adam reverses all taboos. He does not care about the myths of his country, of his family or his religion", notes Waldemar George (''Adam'', 1968, p. 30).

Career

In 1934, Adam got involved with engraving, etching, the use of the burin and the environment of the surrealists, André Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard. He made his first exhibit in 1934, with a preface by Jean Cassou in 1936 after which he began his violently impressionistic engravings entitled, ''Désastres de la guerre'', in response to the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, Adam joined the Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, where he met painters Maurice Estève, Alfred Manessier, , and Árpád Szenes. He took part, along with Picasso, Matisse, Rouault, Dufy, Fernand Léger, Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Zadkine, Roger Bissière and Édouard Pignon in the exhibition ''Quatorze Juillet'' by Romain Rolland at the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, in which Picasso painted the curtain scene.

Adam tackled sculpting in 1942, and in October 1943 he, along with Gaston Diehl, , Jean Le Moal, Manessier, Pignon, Gustave Singier, became one of the fifteen founders of the Salon du Mai. That same year, he created the sets and costumes, masks and two four meter-tall statues for Jean-Paul Sartre's ''Les Mouches'' which Charles Dullin assembled. Adam also carved ''Le Gisant'', a tribute to the French Resistance and martyrs, which would be exhibited in the Salon de la Libération. Adam became friends with Picasso, who lent him his studio in the rue des Grands-Augustins where he worked more at ease until 1950. Between 1948 and 1949, at his Boisgeloup estate, near Gisors, he realized among other works, ''Le Grand Nu'' conserved by the Musée national d'art moderne.

In 1949, Adam presented a comprehensive exhibition of his works, frequently of women's sleek forms, at the gallery Aimé Maeght and in 1952 his copper engravings based on the year's theme of the Month, went on display in the bookstore-gallery ''La Hune''. From 1950 to 1955, he was a professor of design at Antony, at a college which today bears his name. During 1950, he instructed many painters and sculptors (including ).

From 1955, the first retrospective of Adam's work was organized at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. In 1956 and 1957, Adam developed one of his most famous suites of engravings, ''Dalles'', ''Sable et Eau'' showing scenes of the sea, sand and granite of Penmarc'h

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