Laurens, Henri

Henri Laurens, (born February 18, 1885, Paris, France—died May 5, 1954, Paris), French sculptor known for his Cubist works and his later massive studies, particularly of the female figure. He also made collages, lithographs, and other works on paper.

Laurens worked as a stonemason and decorator before he made his first attempts at sculpture, which were influenced by the figurative work of Auguste Rodin. He worked independently of any group until he befriended the Cubist painter Georges Braque in 1911. Laurens soon began to make wood and metal constructions that were sculptural translations of the Cubist painters’ paper collages. His subject matter was Cubist as well, usually depicting figures or guitars, or still lifes of bottles, glasses, and fruit. He painted the various intersecting planes of his sculptures with different colours, claiming this gave the works an “interior light.”

In the mid-1920s Laurens replaced his geometric forms with curves, and he began producing figurative works, particularly female nudes and sirens, in marble and bronze. In his later work he sculpted monumental figures such as The Farewell (1940), which have rounded, biomorphic features.