The Sculptor Gabriel FORESTIER

Postcards depicting the works of Gabriel Forestier

from the collection of Derek French

Monument aux Morts de la Grande Guerre in a park, a grieving figure resting on a tall pedestal; sepia-toned postcard image — Eymet

Black‑and‑white photo of a large crowd in hats outdoors for the 1922 inauguration of the Monument aux Morts (To the Dead). — Eymet Inauguration 1922

Black-and-white photo of a grieving woman statue leaning on a pedestal in front of a war memorial inscribed'Aux Morts'. — Eymet

War memorial statue in Ducey, Manche: angel atop a stone pedestal with a wreath at its base in a town square setting. — Eymet

Postcard of La Force. Dordogne: a war memorial statue in a small square with a chapel and a tree-lined street nearby (Great War memorial). — La Force

Article about Gabriel Forestier in the June 1922 edition of L’ART ET LES ARTISTES

from the collection of Derek French

Cover of the magazine L'ART ET LES ARTISTES with a red winged figure statue in the center and French subtitles about art eras and decorative art. — Front cover

Photo of loose insert from L'Art et les Artistes — Front cover

They are innumerable, like the glorious hecatombs they have to commemorate. It was inexorable. Most are unworthy of their object, and municipal taste — generally deplorable — which presided over their creation, on many occasions manifested itself in such a manner that we can nervously ask when the invasion of our beautiful country of France by all these lamentable sculptures will cease. Some years more and the traveller will not be able to pass through our towns, our villages, our countrysides, without covering his eyes.
Sometimes, however, some works of a moving simplicity or of a noble style, such as the one which we give a reproduction of as an illustration in this edition, emerge from the crowd of this hoard of vulgarities. We offer our sincere congratulations to M. Gabriel Forestier, whose name we are seeing today for the first time, and to whom we would gladly see a recompense worthy of his talent distributed from the Conseil Superieur des Beaux-Arts soon.