Claude Lalanne valuation
Cast real cabbages, ginkgo leaves and human limbs in bronze, and made furniture out of them.
Claude Lalanne was born in Paris in 1925, trained in architecture and decorative arts, and met Francois-Xavier Lalanne in 1952; they worked separately but exhibited together as Les Lalanne for the rest of their lives.
What a work by Claude Lalanne is worth
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Bio
Claude Lalanne was born in Paris in 1925, trained in architecture and decorative arts, and met Francois-Xavier Lalanne in 1952; they worked separately but exhibited together as Les Lalanne for the rest of their lives. Her half of the practice is botanical and bodily: galvanoplasty and electroforming used to cast real leaves, branches, cabbages and crocodiles directly, then assembled into mirrors, chairs, benches, chandeliers and jewellery. The Choupatte, a cabbage on chicken feet, is the emblem. She made the body casts for Yves Saint Laurent's 1969 collection and worked with Serge Gainsbourg and with the gardens at Les Avelines. She died in 2019.
The work sits between sculpture and functional furniture and the market treats it as both, which makes precise cataloguing essential. Pieces exist as unique works, as small numbered editions and as larger editions issued through galleries, and the same model can appear in several sizes and finishes. Signature is usually cast or stamped, with an edition number, and the gallery documentation, from Jansen, Ben Brown and Paul Kasmin among others, is the usual anchor. Gilding and patina are original and are frequently over-cleaned.
At a glance
- Born
- 28 November 1925, Paris
- Died
- 10 April 2019, Fontainebleau
The Impasse Ronsin and the cabbage-headed man
Claude Lalanne studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and joined the community of artists at the Impasse Ronsin in Montparnasse, where the American artists Larry Rivers and Jimmy Metcalf helped her develop her work.
Her sculpture of a man with a cabbage for a head was used on the cover of Serge Gainsbourg's album L'Homme à tête de chou in 1976. With François-Xavier she made the topiary fountains for Santa Monica in 1989, and the Clark Art Institute showed the two of them together in 2021.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
