André Abbal

André Abbal (1876–1953) was a French sculptor. He was commissioned to work on several war memorials and this article gives details of his most important work. Best known as a pioneer of "Direct carving" who became known as "L'Apôtre de la Taille Directe" (the apostle of direct carving).

Biography

Born in Montech in the Tarn et Garonne, the son and grandson of stonemasons, Abbal's parents were Léon Armand Abbal, who practiced as a sculptor, and Jeanne Cousteau. His paternal grandfather was Jacques Abbal, who worked with Violet-le-Duc restoring religious monuments. Abbal studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, then the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was taught by Alexandre Falguière and Antonin Mercié. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Salon des Artistes Français, won the Chenavard prize twice, and was awarded two gold medals.

Abbal was an advocate of "Direct carving". In 1913 he first submitted a work which had been carved directly into stone, without the convention of starting with a model. This piece was called "Le Génie luttant" and it caused something of a controversy with his fellow sculptors, some being for the technique and others against it.

André

Andre or André is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. Andrew is the English form of the Greek name Andreas, a short form of any of various compound names derived from andr- 'man, warrior'. Cognate names are:

The name is popular in Norway and Sweden.

Notable people with this first name include:

Gábor Andreánszky (botanist)

Baron Gábor Andreánszky de Liptószentandrás (August 1, 1895 – November 20, 1967) was a Hungarian botanist, paleobotanist and explorer. He was the son of politician and MP Gábor Andreánszky (1848-1908).

In 1929 he was appointed professor of botany, and in 1942 ordinary professor. That same year, he was named as chief botanist in the Hungarian National Museum (now Museum of Natural History in Hungary). That position was held until 1945, when he became head of the Department of Botany at the University of Budapest, until 1952. Then, for political reasons (and probably his noble origin) he was banned.

He made several expeditions to the Balkan Peninsula, Corsica, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania. He pioneered Paleobotany of Cenozoic, especially Miocene, flora.

Publications

André (play)

André; a Tragedy in Five Acts is a play by William Dunlap, first produced at the Park Theatre in New York City on March 30, 1798, by the Old American Company, published in that same year together with a collection of historic documents relating to the case of the title character, Major John André, the British officer who was hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780, for his role in the treason of Benedict Arnold. The play does not go into the historic details, but rather presents a fictionalized account of the American debate over whether to spare or hang him. Only three characters in the play are historic: André himself, George Washington (referred to throughout the text, except once in a passage inserted between the first two performances, simply as "The General"), and Honora Sneyd, who had been briefly engaged to André ten years earlier under the auspices of Anna Seward, who had done much to romanticize the affair in her Monody on Major André of 1781. (Actually, Honora Sneyd had died of consumption some months before André's death, and never went to America.)