Paul Belmondo (sculptor)

Paul Belmondo (born 8 August 1898, Algiers, French Algeria - d. 1 January 1982, Paris, France) was a French sculptor. He is the father of the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Belmondo was born in Algiers into a poor family of Italian origin (Piedmont and Sicily). His early schooling was at Dordor in Algiers. Passionate about art and design, he began carving at the age of 13 years. He studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Algiers, but his studies were interrupted by the First World War. He was gassed at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, and was then demobilized.

Thanks to a grant from the government of Algeria, he continued his studies in Paris where he became the student, then the friend, of Charles Despiau and Jean Boucher. He won the Grand Prix de Rome and Prix Blumenthal in 1926. He married in Paris in 1930 (3 children were born to the marriage, Alain, Jean-Paul and Muriel). He received the Grand Prix artistique of Algeria in 1932 and then the Grand Prix of the city of Paris in 1936.

During World War II he was a member of Groupe Collaboration, which advocated collaboration with the Nazi authorities. He was vice-president of the arts section (1941–1945). In 1941 he participated in a "study tour" organized by Goebbels in Germany, in which French painters and sculptors visited German cultural sites and art workshops. However, Paul Belmondo was not "worried" after the Liberation since many other well-known artists had also participated.

Before the war, he received many orders from the state, including the Palais de Chaillot with Leo-Ernest Drivier and Marcel Gimond. He became a professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1956 and a member of the Institute in 1960.

He died, aged 83, on 1 January 1982 in Paris. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. His workshop was located in old stables, at the Avenue Denfert-Rochereau in Paris.

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