Félix Marcilhac, Sandoz sculpteur figuriste et animalier , éditions de l’amateur Paris 1993, pages. 478 and 479, n° 1346 et 1347.

 

Black patina bronze, signed “E.M. Sandoz”; Cast by Claude Valsuani, bears the founder's stamp "C. VALSUANI lost wax"
Circa 1920.

Edouard-Marcel Sandoz was born in Basel (Switzerland) on the 21st of March 1881. His work as a sculptor of men and animals numbers around 2000 pieces among which 200 porcelain sculptures. A self-taught artist, he expressed himself in bronze as in ceramics, in direct carving as well as in the painting of flowers and landscapes.
Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris as from 1905, he attended the classes of the sculptor Antonin Mercié and of the painter Ferdinand Cormon.

Inspired by Art Nouveau and its flexible and harmonious forms, he began, from 1920 onwards, to concentrate on animal study

Sandoz took an interest in various sorts of fish, such as sea dogs, crucian carps, carps, bass, seahorses...The seadog particularly fascinated him with its supple, wavy line and the mysterious aspect of this creature from the sea. Bronze, which was Sandoz's favourite alloy, enabled him to play on the different parts of its body, thanks to a very neat patina work, giving life to the sculpture. The catalogue raisonné of the exhibition mentions two copies of this model, one belonging to the Robert de Rothschild Collection, displayed at the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1920 (vitrine 1870???). The second copy is part of the collections of the city of Paris's museums and is conserved in the Fonds d'art contemporain under the number CMS 3759.

The preponderance of animal representation in his work led him to create the Société Française des Animaliers in 1933. Highly committed to his fellow artists, he presided, for twenty years, the Fondation Taylor. Sandoz, who regularly took part in the arts-events of his time, displayed his artworks at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, in 1947, in the pavillon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs. After becoming a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France, and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, he was awarded an hononary doctorate by the Lausanne University in 1959.