Dodeigne, Eugène

Eugène Dodeigne, (born July 27, 1923, Rouvreux, near Liège, Belgium—died December 24, 2015, near Bondues, France), Belgian-born French sculptor best known for his monumental stone figures, usually placed outdoors.

Dodeigne was trained by his father, a stone mason, and attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Tourcoing and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From the emaciated angularity of his earliest carved wooden figures he moved steadily toward a use of eroded curves and complete abstraction. In 1949 he settled in Bondues in northern France, where he began to sculpt in the local Soignies blue limestone. His works range widely in scale. While the smaller of his Soignies forms are highly polished, the surfaces of the monumental outdoor pieces (e.g., “Sculpture,” 1958) are stressed and patterned, suggesting weathered traces of archaic decoration.