While the world is busy installing its monumental brown bears, gorillas, polar bears and emperor penguins in the emblematic places of Vertou, the artist remains hidden in the tranquility of his small studio. The secret is well kept, but Michel Bassompierre, the best-selling animal sculptor in the world, has been working since the 1980s in a green setting in the Nantes region. My father is a bear who hides to create
her daughter Karène whispers with a tender smile, knocking on a door. That day, the sweet 76-year-old dreamer revealed behind the scenes of his ark. I don't often get into my lair, laughs the craftsman in his leather apron, with a tender look behind his gray beard. I only have wild boars who come to disturb me and plow the land.
“In my head, there is the animal scientist, the anatomist, the designer and the sculptor”
It's in his den
bathed in light that the boy sketches and models. This old drawing table belonged to my mother. She had attended Arts Déco in Paris. She did wood engraving, portraiture, illustration…
