When Claude Lalanne and her husband François-Xavier moved to the rural town of Ury near Fontainebleau in 1967, the area was already frequented by bohemians, fellow sculptors and like-minded artists. Having outgrown their Paris apartment due to their burgeoning careers, the artists’ creative visions found fertile ground in a new countryside home. For Claude in particular, the larger spaces of a converted 19th century farmhouse allowed her metalwork craft including casting, moulding, and electroplating to reach new heights. Surrounded by rich fauna and flora, her vivid imagination thrived more than ever. In an environment where animals had always roamed, introducing her very own kind only seemed fitting.
A few years after settling into this new bucolic environment, Claude visited the Paris Zoo thanks to her friend and fellow artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The story goes that the zoo's amenable director agreed to let her have the remains of a recently deceased crocodile, which she used to give a series of cast bronze works a reptilian texture. From the early 1970s, the tactile forms of the animal’s scaly skin became a recurrent theme of her oeuvre. The crocodile motif first appeared as a chandelier and later in various forms of seating, each uniquely honouring the animal’s remarkable morphology though her whimsical interpretations. In the present bronze ‘Crocoseat’, Lalanne’s fascination for the striking shapes of the animal world merge with her knowledge and profound interest in precious metal craftsmanship. The gleaming, life-like crocodile skin drapes over the seat and creates a fantastical free form backrest. The piece is amongst the most extraordinary manifestations of her playful homages to wildlife.
Provenance
Private collection, London
Literature
Paul Kasmin, Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne, New York, 2012, n.p. Adrian Dannatt, François-Xavier & Claude Lalanne: In the Domain of Dreams, New York, 2018, p. 259
2007 Bronze. 71 x 39.5 x 43.4 cm (27 7/8 x 15 1/2 x 17 1/8 in.) Number 1 from an edition of 8 plus four artist's proofs. Seat impressed 1/8 D CL LALANNE 2007.