Jean Ipoustéguy
L’Homme
Jean Ipoustéguy (1920 - 2006), the artist name of Jean Robert, made his debut as a painter and draughtsman, experimenting with abstraction, but travels in Greece and India in the 1950s and 1960s brought him to the human figure, the body and eroticism. From then on he made sculptures and assemblages.
Architect Charles Vandenhove acquired two monumental bronze sculptures by the artist. The sculpture L'Homme (1963) is part of the collection that Vandenhove donated to UGent in 2016 which forms the basis of the VANDENHOVE arts centre, housed in the Vandenhove pavilion next to the Boekentoren. L'Homme represents a moving figure; the man spreads his arms in an inviting gesture and the three legs and feet suggest a snapshot of stepping. Together with the sculpture La Terre (1962) in the collection of the Fondation Jeanne and Charles Vandenhove in Liège, both sculptures embody mythical archaic representations of femininity and masculinity.
L'Homme (1963)