Sculptor · Premier Grand Prix de Rome 1963
Born in 1936, French sculptor, winner of the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1963 and resident of the Villa Medici from 1964 to 1967. From the distant lands of her childhood she has drawn a world in which the elephant, stoneware and gold tell of the strength of love, of the exotic and of adventure.
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I
Jacqueline Georges Deyme was born in Boulogne and spent her childhood between Algiers and Paris.
At the Académie Julian, the sculptor Joseph Rivière encouraged her to enter the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she devoted all her energy to her work.
Raised in a family of diplomats, she also spent part of her childhood in Morocco and Indochina before returning to Paris in 1946 — a childhood that, she says, gave her strength.
II
Her teachers, Janniot and Yencesse, entered her for the Prix de Rome competition.
In 1963 she won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome, becoming only the second woman to receive the award.
III
Her years at the Villa Medici, from 1964 to 1967, brought her back to a family past she held dear, turned towards Africa and Asia.
There she rediscovered a human warmth, a vegetation and above all a light that have inhabited her work ever since.
IV
Everything she encountered became a source of reflection on her own work.
The polychromy of Etruscan terracottas, the strange stone heads of Hermes in the Villa gardens, horses rising from fountains, the palm trees of Bernini’s sculptures in Piazza Navona: all of it confirmed her in her approach to sculpture.
V
Jacqueline Georges Deyme never fell into the trap of a certain academicism that still places the female nude at the heart of the collective imagination. Despite her masters — Rodin, Carpeaux, Henry Moore — she remained marked by the distant lands to which she feels bound, her main source of inspiration.
The elephant became its symbol. It comes and goes with its unmistakable gait, telling of the strength of love, of the exotic and of adventure. The supple, extravagant forms she gives it intrigue and fascinate.
« Je suis comme une romancière. »
I am like a novelist.
Working the material is, for her, a sensual satisfaction. A recurring motif in her work, the elephant takes on human traits and appears in a lush setting, in a loving relationship with a woman.
VI
Her recent works in white stoneware heightened with gold represent the synthesis of the visual language she has created throughout her career.
Set on tall plinths, the figures unite the whiteness of the clay with the brilliance of gold.
VII
It was at the Villa Medici that Jacqueline Georges Deyme met the painter Jean Marc Lange, winner of the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1965.
Between them grew an emotional and professional bond that still nourishes their respective worlds today, and that can be seen in the exhibitions they enjoy staging together.
Works 1977 — 2011
1987 — 1991
Between 1987 and 1991 Jacqueline Georges Deyme also made jewellery: gold, silver, baroque pearls and diamonds, in organic, undulating forms.
