Demeter Chiparus
Demeter Chiparus (1886 - 1947) - Romanian sculptor of the Art Deco era, studied and worked in Paris. Chiparus was born in Romania on September 16, 1886, and went to Italy in 1909. He studied with the sculpture Raffaello Romanelli. In 1912, Chiparus emigrated to Paris, where he attended classes at the Paris Academy of Fine Arts and took lessons from Antonin Mercier and Jean Boucher. Chiparus began with small sculptures of a realistic nature, the first show of which took place in 1914 at the Paris Salon. The first series of sculptures by the master put into production are images of children.
Since the 1920s a mature Chiparus style developed, distinguished by its high decorativeness and effectiveness. From now on, the master’s work was devoted mainly to the depiction of dancers and beautiful women of his time.
The artist's sculptures are a classic manifestation of the Art Deco style in decorative sculpture made of bronze and ivory. Traditionally, there are three factors influencing the master’s work: Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet, Egyptian art and, to a lesser extent, avant-garde art. Some sculptures were directly inspired by the dancers of the Russian troupe - for example, the faces of the figures in the sculptural group “Persian Dance” have portrait features of Vaslav Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein, and the costume of the sculpture “Starfish” exactly repeats the sketch of L. Annensky’s costume for the Golden Fish for the ballet “ Underwater Kingdom" to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov.
