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Pierre Imans, Mannequins d' Art
Updated
'Two leading French companies making display mannequins in the first years of the 20th century were Pierre Imans and Siégel (later Siégel Stockman, still in existence today).
For the first two decades of the century both firms produced mannequins that were predominantly made from wax, a material highly valued for its ability to simulate flesh. The Dutch-born Imans gained a particular reputation for his sophisticated and refined wax figures, and was well -placed to develop this particular line, having studied with the sculptor Ludovic Durand, one of the chief modelers at the Musée Grévin, the hugely popular waxwork museum in Paris that opened to the public in the mid-1880s. However the association only made Imans all the keener to distance himself from the museum-style waxworks, which he denigrated as banal and grotesque.
Imans considered himself not as a wax modeller but as a ‘sculptor and 'ceroplastician’ (statuaire céroplasticien), purging the very word ‘mannequin’ from his promotional vocabulary and describing his figures simply as ‘Les Cires de Pierre Imans' ('The waxes of Pierre Imans').
He set out to reproduce wax representations of the contemporary Parisian lady, ‘in all her grace and charm’. At the beginning of the 1910s, Imans produced an astonishing series of mannequins,which reflect both his artistic aspirations and the extraordinary effects of realism he was able to attain.
While the firm’s male and child mannequins were categorized according to age range, female mannequins were given names and arranged in a range of lifelike and expressive poses. All are positioned against painted dioramas suggestive of the figures’ elegance and privileged social status.
In a catalogue of 1920 Imans shows the sequence of activities that went into confecting his artistic mannequins, from an initial scene showing the sculptor in a workshop, another group of workers applying coloration to the skin and making -up the enamel eyes, while yet another team is devoted to implanting real hair and elaborating the coiffure.
Wax proved a particularly challenging material, for all its mimetic advantages. The figures were heavy (weighing up to 100 kilos), with relatively limited articulations, and had a tendency to break or to melt in high temperatures.
From the 1920s a range of new materials such as cérolaque and carnasine (a mixture of plaster and gelatine) were introduced to produce mannequins that were lighter and more resistant, and also new finishes and effects that were designed to enhance the mannequin’s luxury status and to ensure that it took its place seamlessly in the context of a window display.
These were not mannequins, but ‘créations artistiques', ‘great masterpieces of modern sculpture’ , mannequin-making demanded creative and intellectual impetus, and as such was itself a form of ‘l’art tout court’ (‘art pure and simple') '
- Jane Munro , from 'Silent Partners' (Yale University Press)
For the first two decades of the century both firms produced mannequins that were predominantly made from wax, a material highly valued for its ability to simulate flesh. The Dutch-born Imans gained a particular reputation for his sophisticated and refined wax figures, and was well -placed to develop this particular line, having studied with the sculptor Ludovic Durand, one of the chief modelers at the Musée Grévin, the hugely popular waxwork museum in Paris that opened to the public in the mid-1880s. However the association only made Imans all the keener to distance himself from the museum-style waxworks, which he denigrated as banal and grotesque.
Imans considered himself not as a wax modeller but as a ‘sculptor and 'ceroplastician’ (statuaire céroplasticien), purging the very word ‘mannequin’ from his promotional vocabulary and describing his figures simply as ‘Les Cires de Pierre Imans' ('The waxes of Pierre Imans').
He set out to reproduce wax representations of the contemporary Parisian lady, ‘in all her grace and charm’. At the beginning of the 1910s, Imans produced an astonishing series of mannequins,which reflect both his artistic aspirations and the extraordinary effects of realism he was able to attain.
While the firm’s male and child mannequins were categorized according to age range, female mannequins were given names and arranged in a range of lifelike and expressive poses. All are positioned against painted dioramas suggestive of the figures’ elegance and privileged social status.
In a catalogue of 1920 Imans shows the sequence of activities that went into confecting his artistic mannequins, from an initial scene showing the sculptor in a workshop, another group of workers applying coloration to the skin and making -up the enamel eyes, while yet another team is devoted to implanting real hair and elaborating the coiffure.
Wax proved a particularly challenging material, for all its mimetic advantages. The figures were heavy (weighing up to 100 kilos), with relatively limited articulations, and had a tendency to break or to melt in high temperatures.
From the 1920s a range of new materials such as cérolaque and carnasine (a mixture of plaster and gelatine) were introduced to produce mannequins that were lighter and more resistant, and also new finishes and effects that were designed to enhance the mannequin’s luxury status and to ensure that it took its place seamlessly in the context of a window display.
These were not mannequins, but ‘créations artistiques', ‘great masterpieces of modern sculpture’ , mannequin-making demanded creative and intellectual impetus, and as such was itself a form of ‘l’art tout court’ (‘art pure and simple') '
- Jane Munro , from 'Silent Partners' (Yale University Press)
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