Pierre Curillon

See also: Curillon

The famous sculptor tournusien Pierre Curillon was born on March 16th, 1866 with Tournus, street of Boîterie (district of the Madeleine), in a tournusienne family of Masters contractors and fitters (stone masons). Parents: Pierre Curillon and Jeanne Vallière (born with Vault-of-Bragny). He however would have been born on March 6th according to Jean Martin and Gabriel Jeanton, authors of “Family notable of Tournus” (appeared in Mâcon at Protat brothers in 1915).

Very young person, it is initiated with the size of the stone in the local careers. Old of a dozen years, he works with the building sites of Mr Jaugeon (stone of Chardonnay) then to the building sites of Mr Perret (careers of Lacrost). He gives his first blows of scissors to cut the stones of the elementary schools of Tournus (contractor: Mr Tête).

Jean Martin, then preserving of the museum of Tournus, gives him his first lessons of drawing and pushes it to continue in this direction. He is “pupil of the course of drawing of the schools of Tournus” according to the bulletin of the Company of the friends of arts and sciences of Tournus for the year 1913.

He continues his studies at the school of the Art schools of Lyon. From 1886 to 1890, it studies there under the direction of Dufresne (Dufraine for Bénézit, 1976) with the assistance of the General advice and the Company of the friends of arts of Tournus. It carries out there two sculptures now exposed with the museum Greuze de Tournus: “Holy Sebastien” and “Virgile”.

In 1890, it goes to Paris and exposes for the first time to the Living room of the French artists in 1892, a living room in which it will take part until 1942 (it will be erased files of this living room in 1951). In 1896, he lives with Vanves, number 31 of the street Larmeroux. The following year, he always lives in Vanves, but with number 48 of the street of Health. He always lives there in 1901, in 1904, in 1905. He lives with Paris, to number 82 of the street of Fall-Issoire, in 1908 and 1911.

He becomes little by little a famous sculptor whose work is crowned by a gold medal with the Living room of the French artists in 1908 for his group out of marble “the Filial devotion”, works acquired by the State to be placed at the Petit Palais (plaster, gone back to 1902, is preserved at the museum Greuze de Tournus). A festival is on this occasion given on Sunday, August 9, 1908 in the living room of sculpture by the Company of the friends of arts and of sciences of Tournus to celebrate its gold medal, in the presence of the first Mathey assistant (Mr Thibaudet, mayor of Tournus, was absent with this ceremony because it attended the festival of the radical committee of Saint-Gengoux-the-National); the speech is made by Mr Chanay (report by “the Newspaper of Tournus” the next on August 15th).

In 1894, he had married Adèle Madesclaire (of Vanves), of which he had a son: Jean.

Pierre Curillon died on March 2nd, 1954 with Jumellière, commune of the Maine-et-Loire.

Its multiple activities go from the decoration of civil and religious monuments (three evangelic churches: that of the Good Help in Paris and those of Fontainebleau and Argenteuil) to the restoration of old works. It also contributed to the construction of many war memorials realized between 1919 and 1925, in particular those of Paray-le-Monial, Lugny, Cuisery, Saint-Desert and Palinges in Saône-et-Loire; it also carried out in Tournus the monument of the Centenary of 1814, set up in the public garden of the abbey.

Its principal works are: Fatherland (1892), the Reading light (1894), Victim of the Duty (1896), the Logger (1899), the Discouragement (1900), statue of Cambacérès (1904), Filial devotion (1908), the memorial of died of the doctor Emile Mauchamp in Châlon-sur-saône (1910), the Shiver of Vagueness (1912), the monument of the Centenary of 1814 in Tournus (1914), Hesitation (1914) and the Good Shepherd (1914).

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