André Gourlet, Jardin de sculptures/Sculpture garden

this picture and the next one (july 2009)

courtesy of Francois (Petit Patrimoine website)

Here we have Don Quichotte and Sancho Panzo en route in Brittany, France.

Life and works

This scene was created by André Gourlet (b. 1927), who at age 22 created his first wooden sculpture.

Currently the garden of his house in the community of Riec-sur-Belon, not far from Pont Aven in Brittany, France, has a varied collection in which several man-sized sculptures in particular attract the attention of passers-by.

Meanwhile retired, Gourlet, like his father, was a carpenter from childhood on. During his professional life he also has done a lot of woodworking, for example by decorating wooden furniture.

In his workshop Gourlet has a large collection of smaller sculptures of religious and Breton characters, and then some larger wooden creations also decorate other parts of the interior, as can be seen in the video in the documentation.

Asmodee
picture courtesy of Sophie Lepetit from her weblog

In the garden there is now a varied collection of impressive sculptures, some in the form of small ensembles. Besides Don Quichotte and Sancho Panzo there is a duo of Breton farmers, a big dragon, a tree with all kinds of animals on the branches and a sculpture of the biblical personality Asmodee.

At age 90 in 2017 Gourlet, who is a respected citizen in his community, was still engaged in making sculptures.

Documentation
* article (dec 2003) l'Univers magique d'André le sculpteur in regional journal La Télégramme

* weblog of Sophie Lepetit: november 2011 article and pictures, details of the sculptures (2012), a new sculpture (2012), a series of pictures of the site as it currently was in 2017
* album with over forty pictures of the sculpture garden by Pascal Thibault on Flickr (members only)
* article by Jo Farb Hernandez on website SPACES
Video
* video by Dominique Faure (5'05", YouTube, Oct. 2009)