Original works of art

Edouard Navellier was born in Paris on March 26 1865 and was the son of a printer and the grand-nephew of the sculptor Jouffroy. He was self-taught and started his career with painting. He soon turned to animal sculpture after a visit to the ‘Jardin des Plantes’ where he was captivated by the variety of subjects. Navellier later studied the large grass-eating animals at the Antwerp Zoo (as Bugatti was soon to do also). His work appeared at the Salon des Artistes Francais from 1895 onwards and in 1903 he began to exhibit at the Salon d’Automne where his work was the object of a retrospective in 1945. He made a number of very precise, realistic bronzes, for the most part of average size befitting interior sculpture of the time. Among his consignments to the Salon are ‘Vieux Cerf aux ecoutes’ cast by Colin and Co. in 1898 and ‘Il Passe, elephant pietinant des pelicans’ of 1903 which was chiseled and patinated by the artist.

Navellier continued to work in sculpture after the First World War. His models are still very popular when they are seen on the market but editions sizes were very restrained and there are only very models in circulation. Valsuani cast Navellier’s ‘Bison d’Amerique’ which was exhibited at the Paul Ambroise Gallery in Paris in 1975 (the same year as he exhibited Bugatti’s work on the very same subject).

Navallier taught during the 1920s and 30s at the École Artistique des Animaux in Paris, a number of his pupils were Americans who formed the later generation of American animal sculptors in the 1940s whose work features in the collections at Brookgreen Sculpture Park.