Henry de Waroquier's Secret Sculptures Revealed in New Publication

A new book from Éditions Gallimard, published for the exhibition "Waroquier sculpteur" at La Piscine de Roubaix, sheds light on the sculptural work of Henry de Waroquier, a French artist who died in 1970. The volume includes texts by curator Jean-Loup Champion, poet Paul Claudel, and philosopher Gaston Bachelard. Waroquier began sculpting late in life at age 53 and kept his work hidden for twenty years. His sculptures, described by Claudel as taking the world tragically, feature imploring faces often turned skyward, with low-angle views symbolizing despair. The figure of Oedipus dominates his oeuvre—Waroquier stated, "To free myself from the myth, twenty-four times I gouged out Oedipus's eyes." This obsessive motif reveals the primitivist force, brutality, and archaism of his work, akin to Picasso or Giacometti. Champion writes that sculpture becomes a search for the "eyes of the face," and Oedipus, with gouged eyes, embodies a visage of the gaze. Waroquier's Oedipus, with eyes hollowed into rough cavities, represents a refusal to see the horror of war yet remains clairvoyant in attesting to the monstrous. The article is written by Léa Bismuth.