Les Lalanne à Trianon: Château de Versailles

Inspired by nature, Claude and François-Xavier have elaborated since the 1950s, two parallel works made of playful associations, full of humor and poetry, but each according to its own modus operandi. Against the tide of fashion, outside the schools and artistic groups of their time, not far from the surrealists, the Lalanne's have pursued all their life, and in their work, the praise of nature by evoking its fauna and flora with the means of sculpture.

The works of Claude Lalanne (1925 - 2019) are made from techniques related to the print, casting and electroplating. This process allows him to freeze natural forms to transform them into sculptures, furniture or mirrors. If the style of Claude Lalanne is carried by an ornamental and baroque spirit, the work of François-Xavier Lalanne (1927 - 2008) is distinguished by the synthesis which it operates allying the purity of the drawing and the rigour of execution. He often invents a function adapted to each animal. His works cover a mischievous bestiary under hieratic attitudes that are part of a line of artists of the twentieth century.

This exhibition will be an opportunity to discover or rediscover major works of the couple such as a Wapiti (Grand), 1996, a Âne Bâté (Donkey), 1985, or Le Très Grand Ours (Very Large Bear), 2007, and a herd of iconic Sheep signed by François-Xavier to which will respond the famous sculptures of the Apple of New York, 2006, the New Rabbit of Victoire, 2007, and the emblematic Choupatte (Giant), 2016, of Claude.

Thanks to the Lalanne family, a number of collectors and the Galerie Mitterrand, a significant number of works have been assembled to form an itinerary in the gardens that reflects the impressive diversity of Lalanne's sculptures created over some fifty years.