Robert COUTURIER (1905-2008) Août 96 [Self-portrait], 1996 Bronze proof with a shaded green patina, signed and justified 1/6 on the terrace and bearing the mark of the foundry Susse Frères on the back. The print is mounted on a parallelepiped iron base. H. 170 cm - W. 60 cm - D. 63 cm (excluding base) DV Bibliography: Valérie Da Costa, Robert Couturier, Pars Norma Éditions, 2000, reproduced in full on page 212 and described at length on page 213. Exterior patina, small crack in the metal at the spine. At the end of the summer of 1996, at the age of ninety-one, Robert Couturier produced Août 96, a self-portrait of rare intensity, born, as Valérie Da Costa notes, of "the solitude of the summer months". The work reveals an emaciated body in which "human distress, and above all that of the artist" shines through, all contained in the thin vertical line of bronze suggesting the spine. With this sculpture, Couturier expresses himself with tragic intensity, having made the human figure the vital energy and central subject of his work. The artist reveals an intense and lucid meditation on the end, and like Picasso's last self-portraits in 1972: "we no longer know whether it is the artist who is looking at death or death facing the artist". Having reached the most poignant reflection on his condition as a man and an artist, his work acts as an artistic and spiritual testament. Provenance: a bastide in Aix on the road to Le Tholonet