Ophélie - Apel.les Fenosa
Apel.les Fenosa (1899-1988), Ophélie, patinated bronze, 1987
This bas-relief, installed at La Défense in 1987, was designed as early as 1951. As its name suggests, the artwork is clearly inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's famous poem, whose sensual dreamlike quality the artist transcribes.
"On the calm, black wave where the stars sleep, the white Ophelia floats like a great lily, Floats very slowly, lying down in her long sails... "
A word about the artist
Appel.les Fenosa was born in Barcelona in 1899. This artist has cosmopolitan inspirations that feed his creative imagination. In Paris, where he settled in 1921, he met Picasso who, detecting in this young sculptor an originality of perception and integrity of approach, decided to support him.
Helped and recognised, he exhibited in 1926 in a Parisian gallery. Fenosa's art, particularly attached to the sensual and almost exclusive representation of the eternal feminine, is made of sensitivity, imbued with surrealism and a profound sense of arabesque. Appel.les Fenosa died in 1988.
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