Claude Lalanne

Kasmin Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2012

François-Xavier & Claude Lalanne: Dreams for the Light of Day, exh. cat., Gerald Peters Gallery, New York and Santa Fe, 2000, p. 35 (for a related example)
Reed Krakoff, Ben Brown and Paul Kasmin, Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne, exh. cat., Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York and Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, 2006, pp. 94-95 (for a related example)
Daniel Abadie, Lalanne(s), Paris, 2008, pp. 38 and 62-63 (for related examples)
Les Lalanne, exh. cat., Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 2010, n.p. (for a related example)

This lot is offered together with a copy of the certificate of authenticity from the artist.

Born in Paris in 1925, Claude Lalanne studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs before gravitating toward sculpture and design. In 1952 she met François-Xavier Lalanne, her partner in life and in art. After marrying in the 1960s, the couple became known collectively as “Les Lalanne,” celebrated for their dreamlike creations inspired by the animal and botanical kingdoms. In the present Lapin Debout I, Lalanne perfectly captures a rabbit in a moment of alertness. Standing on its hind legs with ears erect and eyes staring at the viewer, the animal is so naturalistically rendered in gilt bronze that it appears it could dash away at any moment. Lalanne added a playful touch to the rabbit by dressing it in an Elizabethan collar composed of cabbage leaves, one of her favorite and most celebrated motifs. Her partner once said, “The cabbage leaf is to Claude what the acanthus leaf is to ancient Greek art.” Though the leaves are highly fragile, Lalanne mastered a galvanizing process that coated them with a thin layer of metal, freezing their natural beauty and achieving the most lifelike effect. This is exemplified in her iconic Choupatte sculptures, in which she adds poultry legs to the head of cabbage to create an entirely distinctive, charming creature. By adorning the present lot with this same vegetal detail, Lalanne gives the anthropomorphic rabbit as much personality as the famous literary figures Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and White Rabbit by Lewis Carroll. The Lapin Debout I demonstrates Lalanne’s virtuosity as an artist and is a wonderful character within her imaginative garden.