Emile Just Bachelet (1892-1981)

"Tenderness Direct carving on stone Circa 1930 Dim. H: 54 cm Bibliography: Detail of our sculpture titled and documented in the magazine "L'Art Vivant" N°139 of 1930 Biography (Wikipedia): Émile Just Bachelet studied at the École des beaux-arts de Nancy, where he was a pupil of Jules Larcher for drawing and Ernest Bussière for sculpture. He continued his studies at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, where he met Georges Roty, who opened the doors of the Parisian bourgeoisie to him. Unfit for active service, he was mobilized in 1915 during the First World War as a nurse in a military hospital in Troyes, then in Lure. He draws and creates busts of wounded soldiers, including Maurice Bedel, and of doctors. It was here that he met Dr. Chompret, a ceramics enthusiast who was to be a great help to him in the early stages of his career. Settled in Paris on rue Campagne-Première, he took part in the Salon des artistes français from 1920 onwards, winning the competition to build the war memorial at La Fontenelle, in the commune of Ban-de-Sapt in the Vosges. He consolidated his reputation in Lorraine, winning numerous competitions in the region. He diversifies beyond busts and monuments. The Compagnie des Forges de Pont-à-Mousson commissioned bas-reliefs for its headquarters and bronzes for medal winners at celebrations. He models animals, athletes, pedestrians and nudes. He carves the sculptural reliefs for the Nancy and Eastern France pavilion at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. He creates bas-reliefs for the 1931 Colonial Exhibition and the 1935 and 1937 Universal Exhibitions. In 1935, he became a member of the Société des Lorrains de Paris8 and was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. He models objects for the publishing industry: table services, religious objects, advertising objects and small sculptures (chicks, ducks). His ivories are his most original works. The largest are nudes and the smallest (around 50cm) are birds. One of them was to have been shown at the 1939 New York International Exhibition, but was destroyed in a fire on the liner Paris au Havre [ref.nécessaire]. Having worked with André and Jean Lurçat in Nancy, in 1927 he acquired a plot of land in Paris at 6, villa Seurat, adjoining the house that André Lurçat had designed for his brother Jean as part of a Bauhaus-inspired architectural ensemble. He worked with renowned architects and artists, including Paul Charbonnier, Henri Antoine, Jacques Gruber, Jean Prouvé and Pierre Le Bourgeois, on monuments such as Gustave Simon's funeral chapel in Nancy's Préville cemetery in 1927, and the Magasins réunis building, also in Nancy, in 1928. He turned to Henri Antoine and Jean Prouvé for the construction of his reinforced concrete house on rue Lothaire II in Nancy, the only modernist-style house in Nancy in 1925, characterized by its white, geometric volume open onto the garden and a flat roof. Bachelet worked with the Henriot faïencerie in Quimper, the Mougin brothers17 in Nancy and the Faïencerie de Lunéville-Saint-Clément, for whom he produced a Saint Nicolas.