Helena - Raymond Sudre (1870-1962)

Bust sculpted in white Carrara marble
Signed on the left "R. Sudre"

France
circa 1905
height 66 cm
width 44 cm
depth 37 cm

Trace of tip left at the back by the sculptor for technical carving.

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Works to be linked :
– "Héléna, cité roussillonnaise, rêve à son antique splendeur", patinated plaster, dated 1902, bought by the French State at the 1902 Salon of the Society of the French artists in Paris, cat. N.2869, National Center for Visual Arts, on deposit at the Hyacinthe Rigaud Museum in Perpignan (inv. FNAC 1141).
– "Héléna, cité roussillonnaise, rêve à son antique splendeur", 1905, marble, Carcassonne, André-Chenier gardens.

Biography :
Raymond Sudre (1870-1962) was a French sculptor. Born in Perpignan and the son of a marble worker, Raymond Sudre trained at the Beaux-Arts school in Paris, in the workshops of Alexandre Falguière then Antonin Mercié. Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1900, Sudre truly enjoyed success at the Salon of French Artists in 1902 with “Helena, Roussillon city dreams of its ancient splendor”. There he received a second class medal for this plaster work as well as a travel grant allowing him to travel across Europe, from Spain to the Netherlands to perfect his style and his training.

In 1904, the French State ordered a version of his Helena, carved in marble in 1905 and intended for the town of Elne (Elna in Catalan) near Perpignan. Raymond Sudre drew inspiration for this sculpture from both the name of Elne city and Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, when he had a caestrum built there to which he gave his mother's name. But the work which was to adorn the village hall of Elne, itself baptized "Héléna", then caused a scandal by its too languorous pose, far from the canonized saint and first Roman empress converted to Christianity, and ultimately did not integrate not the city. The large marble was then installed in the Jardin des Plantes in Carcassonne in 1907.