Edgar Degas
Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", or "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory".
Raymond Delamarre
In 1925 and in collaboration with the architect Michel Roux Spitz, he took part in the competition to secure the work on the proposed "Monument à la Défense du canal de Suez" to be erected in Ismaîlia, a work of huge proportions and a most prestigious project. Also working with Roux-Spitz, he exhibited a sculptural composition for a water fountain at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the bas-reliefs "Nessus et Dejanire" and "Persée et Andromède" cast in bronze in 1935, two tympani for the decorator Paul Follot, a bronze entitled "David" and a work in plaster entitled "Femme au bélier". Between 1926 and 1927, Delamarre worked on the "Mowgli" ronde-bosse. He also executed a bas-relief of Mowgli in plaster measuring 2 metres by 2 metres.