Animal mange-serrure

Michele Forgeois

Michele Forgeois also sculpted a cast bronze of “Animal Mange-Serrure” around the same time as creating this color lithograph - which work came first isn’t clear. Known for her illustrations accompanying the works of various poets and writers, it may be that she was inspired by Surrealist Henri Michaux’s poem “L’Animal Mange-Serrure,” loosely translated as “the lock-eating animal.”

Michele Forgeois was born in Bois-Colombe, France, on May 16, 1929. She studied printmaking and sculpture, and worked as an illustrator for Allen Press in Kentfield, California, at various times in the 1970s and '80s. She was noted for her monumental sculptural works commissioned by a variety of governmental and corporate entities, including Louise Michele College, the Banque de France, and the Perigueux commune. Among her smaller sculptural designs was a trophy in bronze for the 1983 Press and Media of Paris award.

In 1984 Forgeois was commissioned by the French government to create a memorial for Berthe "Berty" Albrecht, a celebrated World War II resistance fighter and feminist who died in a French prison cell operated by the Gestapo during the occupation; the monument was installed on a median along the street also named for Albrecht, intersecting at Bataillon-du-Pacifique square. On September 28, 1984, Forgeois was promoted chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1983 filmmaker Fabienne Strouve made a fifteen-minute film about Forgeois, including interviews with the artist about her work.