Georges Gardet

French animal sculptor Georges Gardet is known for his proud and romantic portrayals of big game animals. Gardet studied under his father, Joseph, and later the important French animalier sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet. He began exhibiting at the Salon of French Artists at the age of twenty and secured important commissions for monumental sculptures throughout France, including a Bison and Jaguar (1892) for the entrance to the museum of Laval and lions to ornament the stairs of the Alexandre III bridge on Paris' Right Bank. In 1900 he won the Grand Prize at the Exposition Universelle. Like other French animalier artists, Gardet favored scenes of animals engaged in combat; but he also emphasized the animals' individual expressions of character to a far greater degree than his contemporaries.