Hergé : NEUJEAN (1923 - 2018): Le monument Tintin et Milou en pieds, bronze sculpture using the technique known as "à la cire perdue", 1976, n°HC 1/1, 186 cm (with base), stamp of the Pinella de Andreïs et Figli foundry in Milan on the edge of the base, signed Neujean Nat. In 1947, "Les Amitiés Belgo - Françaises" commissioned Nat Neujean to produce a bust of André Malraux. Knowing Malraux's admiration for Tintin, the French Embassy advised Neujean to visit Hergé. It was from this date onwards that a mutual friendship developed between the sculptor and Hergé. Around 1951, Hergé and Editions du Lombard had the idea of marketing vinyl figurines of the Tintin characters with the children's toy company MIRIM. They asked Nat Neujean to make the plaster models. Using drawings supplied by Hergé and after numerous interviews, Nat Neujean modelled the first 20 cm high sculpture of Tintin. The father of Tintin and Snowy was very surprised by the result: it was the first time he had seen his hero in three dimensions! Shortly afterwards, Hergé commissioned Nat Neujean to carve a 40 cm high bust of Tintin in French stone. It was to sit proudly on Hergé's desk from 1954 onwards. In 1958, again at Hergé's request, Nat Neujean created his portrait in bronze. In 1975, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tintin magazine, Raymond Leblanc (Director of Éditions du Lombard) and Guy Dessicy (Publiart) came up with the idea of giving Hergé a big surprise: a full-length statue of Tintin and Snowy standing over six feet tall! Naturally, Nat Neujean was commissioned to make it. It took Neujean a month to complete the final work, which was 180 cm high. The model (Alain Baran's dog, Hergé's private secretary) was not very docile, but Neujean was keen to have a real dog in front of him, to give Snowy a more personal touch. Tintin's companion will be placed next to him, but will turn his back on his master as a sign of his own existence and independence. The monument was unveiled on 29 September 1976, in the presence of Hergé and Nat Neujean, in the Wolvendael park in Uccle. After several attempts at theft and damage, the monument was placed in a safe place at the Uccle Cultural Centre, where the work can still be admired today. Nat NEUJEAN (real name Nathanaël Neuman) was born in Antwerp on 5 January 1923 and died in Brussels on 4 February 2018. At the age of 14, he took up a studio in Antwerp where he learnt sculpture. He was accepted as a free student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1939 to 1942. In 1942, the German authorities demanded that Belgian students of Jewish origin be expelled from their places of study. Nat Neujean left Antwerp and lived in Brussels, where he worked while living in hiding. On the advice of a friend in the Resistance, he took the name Neujean. After the war, he lived in Paris for 1946 and 1947, before returning to Brussels where he settled permanently. His first commissions and portraits date from this period, including those of Hergé, André Malraux and Ben Gourion. Deeply affected by the horrors of the Second World War, he began preliminary studies for "La Mémoire de la Déportation", to which he devoted a large part of his work. The victims of the Holocaust were to remain omnipresent in his work, offering a moving image of these ghostly figures, destined for total destruction. A first exhibition in New York in 1964 was followed by a retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and an invitation to teach as a foreign professor at Boston University's Fine Art School. Nat Neujean's sculptures were subsequently exhibited throughout the second half of the twentieth century in the United States, Canada and Australia. He has also had numerous exhibitions in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Italy and England. Neujean is also renowned as a portraitist of personalities such as Paul Delvaux, Robert Schuman, Trammell Crow, Frank Stanton (President of the Red Cross), Giacomo Manzu and Henri Moore. He was elected a member of the Académie Royale de Belgique in 1972, and head of its class in 1978. He was elected a corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca di Roma in 1995. Since 1955, Nat Neujean has worked exclusively with the De Andreis Foundry in Milan.