Auguste Trémont

Biography

In 1914 Auguste Trémont went to Luxembourg on a visit and could not return to Paris. He tried to get there through Switzerland, but German troops stopped him near the Swiss border and put him under arrest.

He was born in Luxembourg City on 31 December 1892 (30 December is sometimes given). His school years were spent there. In October 1909 he came to Paris and entered the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, the national school of decorative arts.

After his release he returned to Luxembourg and until the end of the war worked at the steelworks in Dudelange. He could draw right beside the machines, and he made pencil portraits of the workers at their tasks. At the plant he became friends with Aloyse Meyer, the future president of the steel company Arbed. In 1918 Trémont received the Prix Grand-Duc Adolphe, apparently as a painter.

After the armistice he found himself in Paris again and began studying at the École des Beaux-Arts. At first he painted portraits, views of the city and still lifes. Then he walked into the Jardin des Plantes, with its menagerie, and found his subject there. Later he was asked why he portrayed animals, and he answered: “Because it was the most difficult task.”

His first sculptures appeared in 1924. In the same year his drawing of a steelworker, the “Feierstëppeler”, was used for the new Luxembourg 1 and 2 franc coins. The design remained on them until 1991; according to some accounts, he made it for the Belgian artist Armand Bonnetain. Then came chimpanzees, panthers, royal tigers, a serval, an elephant, a bison, a lion, a stag. The most productive years were the late 1920s and early 1930s: it was then that in Paris he modelled the two large lions for the steps of Luxembourg City Hall. In 1932 came a dwarf buffalo from the Ivory Coast. The City of Paris bought a stag and other animals from his work.

His work was shown in the Paris galleries of Ruhlmann, later of Edgar Brandt, and the Malesherbes gallery.

He also received large commissions for Luxembourg. For the Luxembourg pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1935 he made miners, and for the pavilion at the Paris fair of 1937 a hind. In 1936 he modelled religious scenes for Notre-Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg, and in 1953 a Madonna for its west portal.

He spent the Second World War in Paris. After it ended he returned to Luxembourg and created memorials to the victims of the war, among them the monument to the dead at Differdange and the Liberation medal of 1945. Later he again painted flowers, still lifes and portraits in oil. His drawings are reproduced on many Luxembourg postage stamps.

Trémont died in Luxembourg on 23 October 1980.