How living in the French countryside helped shape the art of Les Lalanne

‘The supreme art,’ François-Xavier Lalanne once declared, ‘is the art of living.’ He and his wife, Claude Lalanne — known together as ‘Les Lalanne’ — created nature-inspired objects that were intended to be incorporated into everyday life.

Despite the collective moniker, their collaborations were rare. Instead, they shared a life together, working separately but alongside one another for nearly 50 years at their maison atelier in the rural village of Ury, south of Paris. It was there that their ideas flourished and they practised the art of living to the fullest.

‘François used to tell me that works of art were meant to be a part of everyday lives,’ wrote Marie Lalanne, the couple’s daughter. ‘Theirs weren’t sacred objects but rather companions for living, with which to interact and converse.’ If art was meant to be integrated into the everyday, Ury was Les Lalanne’s personal testing ground.

Throughout their home and in the surrounding gardens, one might encounter a bronze bird doubling as a lamp, a glass tabletop suspended on the horns of a ram, or a monumental monkey standing sentry in the courtyard. These creations, dotted throughout Les Lalanne’s own spaces, were a testament to the joy of living with their art.

Up until her death in 2019, Claude maintained a strict schedule, working out of her studio each day, surrounded by family, friends and assistants. The flora and fauna of Ury became the model for her work. Hence her tableware incorporating the forms of snails and butterflies, and her benches wreathed in gilt-bronze branches punctuated by galvinised copper leaves. In each instance, Claude’s affinity for nature is underpinned by a capricious humour.

François-Xavier, too, produced playful works inspired by the natural world. ‘François had two workshops,’ noted Darius Metcalf, a member of the Lalanne family who worked in the atelier, ‘one where he sculpted clay, and another, larger one where he worked with metal.’ A life-size bronze bull sculpture might open to reveal a secret compartment, the space inside crafted to hold barware, as in Taureau I Bar (1994), or a rhinoceros might transform into an elaborate desk, as in Rhinocrétaire I (1964).

Ury was, in many ways, isolated from society, and yet Les Lalanne’s enduring friendships with artists and close bonds with their four daughters made for a rich community. Nearby were Teeny and Marcel Duchamp — as well as Teeny’s daughter from her first marriage, Jackie, granddaughter of Henri Matisse. Jackie and Claude became close friends, as did their children.

‘They visited each other regularly for mutual advice and support in their creative work,’ recalled Jackie’s children. The atmosphere at Ury, they said, was ‘warm and full of fantasy’.

Beyond the locals, Les Lalanne often entertained their vast circle at home, with close friends and artists paying visits throughout the years. ‘They would always discuss their projects around a good lunch and would sometimes invite gallerists, collectors, family or friends,’ said Metcalf. ‘At night, they often went to dinner in Paris, and the following day, everything would start again.’

‘We were no longer simply petites mains working with Claude and François-Xavier,’ said Simon Borga, another former member of the atelier. ‘We were integrated into a workshop but also their house, their family, their universe. It was a unique experience, just like their oeuvre.’

In Ury, Les Lalanne created a world unto themselves. Among the verdant gardens and surrounding countryside, both Claude and François-Xavier found a wellspring of inspiration. ‘They were present and in constant dialogue with nature wherever they went,’ wrote Marie of her parents.

While François-Xavier abstracted his surroundings, refashioning forms through sculpture, Claude distilled the material around her into works of art. Using the process of electroplating, she would bathe items from her garden in sulphuric acid and copper sulphate, which coated them in a thin layer of copper; they could then be refined by hand into pieces of jewellery, sculpture or furniture.

In ‘Choupatte’ (2013), Claude uses bronze to meld the animal and vegetable worlds of her garden. A head of cabbage (chou) is perched on the legs of a chicken (pattes), the juxtaposition serving to underline facts of nature we take for granted. One of her most famed creations, the sculpture embodies both her whimsical sense of humour and her unique way of seeing the world.

In the works of François-Xavier, we see nature not suspended in bronze but adapted to whatever material he was using, its edges smoothed and textures softened. He takes the form of an animal and remakes it into something else entirely. In ‘Le Lapin’ (circa 1987), a rabbit, perhaps modelled after another Ury local, sits like Albrecht Dürer’s Young Hare of 1502. The artist creates, in its carefully rendered form, a three-dimensional still life in cool modernist marble.

A similar quality is found in his ‘Moutons de Laine’, rendered in wool and ebonised wood. Under François-Xavier’s gaze, the commonplace animals of Ury’s countryside are made grand, becoming objects of significance.

Above all, the works of Les Lalanne defy categorisation. They exist outside time, suggesting echoes of antiquity and nods to Surrealism while moving beyond any one movement or label. In this way, the couple pushed the boundaries of what may be considered art, creating objects not merely meant to be looked at and admired but to be part of our daily existence.

Related artists: Claude Lalanne, François-Xavier Lalanne