Denys Puech (3 December 1854,Gavernac,Bozouls,Aveyron – December 1942,Rodez, Aveyron) was a French sculptor.
From a family of farmers (his brother wasLouis Puech,Député for the Seine Department from 1898 to 1932, and Minister of Public Works from 3 November 1910 to 27 February 1911), he began as an apprentice in the marble workshop ofFrançois Mahoux inRodez. In 1872, after two years training, he pursued an apprenticeship inParis in the workshop ofFrançois Jouffroy then ofAlexandre Falguière andHenri Chapu, at the same time following an evening course at theBeaux-Arts.
1881 and 1883 saw his first successes, when he twice won the second prize in theprix de Rome contest, for hisTyrtaeus singing the Messanians (Tyrtée chantant les Messéniennes) andDiagoras dying for joy on learning of his two victorious children's triumph at the Olympic Games (Diagoras mourant de joie en apprenant le triomphe de ses deux enfants vainqueurs aux Jeux Olympiques) respectively. He at last won first prize in 1884, withWoundedMezentius (Mézence blessé).
From then on he received several official commissions from theFrench Third Republic, sculpting (among others) busts ofJules Ferry (1895),Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1898),Émile Loubet (1901) andBenito Mussolini (1925). In all, 573 works are inventoried. He founded a museum of fine art in Rodez in 1903 (now theMusée Denys-Puech). The building, inaugurated in 1910, was designed by him in conjunction with the architect Boyer to best show off his sculptures.
He was elected a member of theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts in 1905, and made a knight of theLégion d'honneur on 17 January 1908. On 13 May 1908, he married princess Anina Gagarine Stourdza (1 June 1865 – 14 April 1918), a painter herself, of whom he sculpted a statue holding a painter's palette in 1914.[1] He was Director of theFrench Academy in Rome from 1921 to 1933.
Among those who studied with him were the American sculptorsClara Hill,[2]Ernest Keyser[3] andHelen Farnsworth Mears.[4]
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