Georges Jeanclos’s Sleepers (Dormeurs)

Georges Jeanclos (1933–97) was among the most important ceramic sculptors in France during the late 20th century. He developed personal imagery centering on themes of death, birth, resurrection, and human interconnection. Jeanclos’s exploration of the human condition was rooted in his experience as a Jewish boy during World War II, hiding in the forests around Vichy, in Nazi-occupied France, to escape the Gestapo (German secret police). 

This object-in-focus exhibition presents the new sculptural acquisition Sleepers (Dormeurs) from 1979 in an expanded context, including his unique sculptural method in clay, and the work’s reflection of his Jewish identity and personal experiences.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.