Louis Bancel (26 September, 1926 – 2 December, 1978) was a French sculptor born in Saint-Julien-Molin-Molette. He was the husband of Chantal Bancel. He is the father of linguist Pierre Bancel, musician Marie Bancel, historian Nicolas Bancel and computer scientist Renaud Bancel.

Biography

Bancel obtained his baccalaureate early and began to study Further Mathematics at the

Lycée du Parc The Lycée du Parc is a public secondary school located in the sixth ''arrondissement'' of Lyon, France. Its name comes from the Parc de la Tête d'Or, one of Europe's largest urban parks, which is situated nearby. It provides a ''lycée''-level ...

in Lyon, only to stop them at 17 when he decided to join the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

.
After the war, his life in the resistance and his recent introduction to art history led him to drop the idea of a life as an engineer. After 3 years as an apprentice for the French sculptor Lucien Descombe in Lyon, he moved in Paris in 1948. Citing moderns like Picasso, Matisse and Laurens, but also the primitive sculptures from the Cyclades, Bancel's work on forms and design gradually evolved towards purity and simplicity.

Memorial to the deportees of Buchenwald

Through his friend, painter Boris Taslitsky, Louis Bancel was asked in 1957 by the ''Association des déportés de Buchenwald-Dora'' to create the monument dedicated to the memory of the camp's victims. The monumental bronze sculpture (inaugurated April 5, 1964) now stands in

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

, in the area dedicated to victims of the World War II. It stands on a granite support from the architect M. Romer (a deportee himself) engraved with a text from

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...

:

(Let this forever show how the Man had to fall
And how courage and devotion
Maintain his name of Man)

Sources

* GOUTTENOIRE Bernard, ''Dictionnaire des peintres et sculpteurs à Lyon aux XIXe et XXe siècles'', Lyon, La Taillanderie, 2000. * Société des Amis de Louis Aragon et Elsa Triolet, ''Faites entrer l'infini n°26'', Paris, Société des Amis de Louis Aragon et Elsa Triolet, Decembre 1998. * ''Monuments à la mémoire des déporté(e)s victimes des camps de concentration et d'extermination nazis'', Mairie de Paris : Musée de la Résistance nationale, 2005 File:Femmesirene louisbancel saintouen photoelenaramos.jpg, alt=#louisbancel #sculptor #paris #basin #saintouen #sculpture, Mermaid woman holding a fish located in the Place d'Armes Basin in Saint-Ouen in the Paris region. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bancel, Louis 1926 births 1978 deaths French Resistance members 20th-century French sculptors 20th-century French male artists French male sculptors