Simone Boisecq (1922-2012) was a French sculptor born in Algiers, known for her non-figurative work combining influences from the primitive arts and modernity. Fascinated from childhood by North African, Brittany and Oceanic cultures, she developed a sculptural language inspired by plant, mythological and architectural forms, while incorporating an anthropomorphic and symbolic dimension. She moved to Paris after the Second World War and met Karl-Jean Longuet, to whom she married in 1949. Together they frequented major figures in modern art such as Picasso, Brancusi and Zadkine, as well as artists from the Nouvelle École de Paris such as Vieira da Silva, Étienne Hajdu and Roger Bissière. Boisecq exhibited at the Jeanne Bucher gallery and took part in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and the Salon de Mai. Her sculptures, described as ‘savage’ by the critic Henri-Pierre Roché, reflect a cultural synthesis and formal simplicity.

“This work, exhibited at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in January 54, was noticed by Germaine Richier, who came to congratulate SB (terracotta now at the MNAM at the Centre Pompidou). It is part of the first ‘’sauvage‘’ period, which marked Boisecq's entry into sculpture.

On one side is the star with a hole in it, and on the other, the man symbolised by this cross, clinging to his star and consumed by it. The theme of the Sun runs through all the artist's work, and this Soleil Césaire, Soleil cou coupé (Césaire's Sun, Cutting Sun) was taken up again 50 years later in a Soleil nocturne (1998, Musée d'Agen).

‘Man clinging to his star with arms outstretched. Sun on one side, man on the other.

I'm looking for expression, I don't work on levels or according to the light, but according to the emotion it gives me.

I can't say that my sculptures are ideas because they are volumes, but they are simple volumes on which you can hang an idea.

Absolute form. What could be more absolute than a circle? A circular unit pierced... The sun for a human being who is himself a sun. He is pierced by the sun, he unfolds from behind, in the shade. The human being: another cross that hides the opening’ (Simone Boisecq, 2007)”

Anne Longuet Marx