At the age of thirty-three, Guy Charles Revol studied sculpture with various masters. Their different techniques, none of which fully matched his own temperament, contributed to the formation of his personality through their very diversity.
His collaboration at the French Pavilion at the 1939 San Francisco Exhibition had already been noticed. Like Jean-Denis Maillart, he dreams of adorning churches and palaces, but through different means. Perhaps one day they will compete for the nudes of some monument; for now, they are united both by friendship, by the staircase (Staircase C in the building on Boulevard Malesherbes, where Guy-Charles Revol also occupies a studio), and by the telephone, which is practically shared, as Maillart's studio does not have one.
While waiting for circumstances to allow him to satisfy his taste for architectural ornamentation, Revol engages in various activities. Naturally, he sculpts, and his busts draw attention for the sensitivity they exhibit.
But he also draws, and he often forgets that he is a sculptor, working as if he only ever used pencils and knew nothing of the chisel. His sketches reflect his sensitivity, but it is a sensitivity somewhat imbued with sensuality and almost tempts one to call it receptivity.
With René Drouet, he once imagined the setting for a boutique of frivolities named "Ondine," which, while reminding us that a simple fisherman's net can adorn a beautiful woman, evokes the theater, for which Guy Charles Revol is passionate. He has created models for the sets of "La Sauvage" by Jean Anouilh at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, and on this easel, there are other models being prepared.
Around us are the sculptor's latest works: busts of Paul Colin, Leleu, and Monelle Valentin. There is also a gilded bronze statuette of Antigone, standing in her stubborn refusal, and there is Monelle Valentin herself, who came to chat with her friends Revol and Maillart.
With a delicate figure and a small, fiery face framed by a mass of tawny hair, she descends the few steps leading to the studio and laughs at seeing herself twice, as if in a double mirror.
It is a strange encounter where the two images of stone and gold seem almost as alive as the flesh-and-blood woman, bearing witness to the artist who created them.
Sources : Plaisir de France N°115 janvier-Fevrier 1946
