François-Xavier Lalanne

François-Xavier Lalanne (born August 28, 1927 in Agen , † December 7, 2008 in Ury (Seine-et-Marne) ) was a French sculptor , designer , painter , draftsman and graphic artist .

Life

From 1945 François-Xavier Lalanne studied painting, graphics and sculpture at the Académie Julian in Paris . In 1948 he married Eugénie Pompon, a distant relative of the animal sculptor François Pompon , who influenced Lalanne in his work. In 1949 he moved into his own studio in the Montparnasse district . There he met the sculptors Constantin Brâncuși , Jean Tinguely and James Metcalf . He earned his living from 1949–1950 as an overseer in the Egyptian department of the Louvre . 1952 Lalanne had his first solo exhibition with works of painting. On this occasion he met the sculptor Claude Dupeux, who became his wife in 1967. Shortly after the exhibition, he gave up painting, worked as an architectural draftsman for the architect André Sive until 1956 and turned to sculpture at the same time. From 1956 he worked occasionally with Claude Dupeux. In addition to joint works, both mainly created their own objects, which they often exhibited together as Les Lalanne .

Lalanne achieved greater fame through collaboration with the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent , for whom he created the YSL bar in 1965 . This Brâncuși-inspired object made of nickel silver, brass and crystal glass exemplifies the flowing transitions between design and art object, furniture and sculpture, typical of Lalanne's other works. Also in 1965 he created a group of 24 life-size aluminum sheep, which were covered with real sheep's wool. The work entitled Mouton de Laine , which could also be used as seating, caused a sensation in the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in Paris. The artist later took up the motif of the flock of sheep again in different variations. Other sculptural animal objects such as elephants, gorillas and rhinos followed. One of these rhinos, with the function of a desk, can now be found in the collection of the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris . For his animal sculptures, which were influenced by the Surrealists, Lalanne used materials as diverse as bronze, steel, stone, concrete, plaster of paris, porcelain and glass. From 1964 to 1978 he also designed various motifs for the Manufacture royale de porcelaine de Sèvres . Works by Lalanne can be found in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Agen, in the Hakone Open Air Museum , in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, in the Musée national de céramique in Sèvres, in the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice, in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris and in the Élysée Palace .

literature

• François-Xavier Lalanne . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 82, de Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-023187-8 , p. 532.
• Catherine Loewer (Eds.): Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne, fragments . Acatos, Lausanne 2000, ISBN 2-940033-58-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The YSL bar was auctioned at Christie's auction house for 2.7 million euros in 2009. Information on the object with photo at http://www.christies.com/.