CLAUDE LALANNE | "Bureau Crocodile"

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Important Notices Sotheby's Conditions of Sale and Terms of Guarantee constitute the entire agreement with all bidders. Sotheby's accepts no liability beyond what is set out in Sotheby's Conditions of Sale and Terms of Guarantee. The phrase "Seller Estimate" used above is no different from the estimates appearing elsewhere on this site and in Sotheby's catalogues and website. For a more complete description of what an estimate is, please refer to the Bidding Guide & FAQs Items sold through Sotheby's are excluded from the eBay Money Back Guarantee, even though you may see references to the eBay Money Back Guarantee while bidding on live auction items. Sotheby's guarantees the Authorship of all lots for a period of five years. For a complete statement of the Terms of Guarantee please review the Conditions of Sale full size Full Size Image (79.5 x 157 x 61 cm) number six from an edition of eight CONDITION REPORT SALEROOM NOTICE PROVENANCE Galerie Mitterrand, ParisAcquired from the above by the present owner, 2009 EXHIBITED LITERATURE Daniel Marchesseau, les Lalanne , Paris, 1998, pp. 104-105 (for a pair of related console tables)Paul Kasmin, Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne , New York, 2012, n.p.Les Lalanne: Fifty Years of Work, 1964-2015 , exh. cat., Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, 2015, p. 103 CATALOGUE NOTESotheby's would like to thank Claude Lalanne for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.At midnight during a full moon in 1972, Claude Lalanne paid a visit to the zoo. It was a surreal and eagerly anticipated experience for the artist. She had made an appointment with the director of the zoo, who agreed to her request for the remains of a recently deceased crocodile. Lalanne had conceived the idea to incorporate the animal's unique form into her bronze work, but she knew it would be impossible to realize without a model. So she waited for nature and fate to take its course. When a crocodile at the zoo died, the zoo director (who was a friend of Niki de Saint Phalle) recognized that the animal, under Lalanne's nimble fingers and poetic imagination, would soon begin its next life as a work of art.Since that night, Lalanne has incorporated the "Croco" into an array of her works. Either fragmented or in its entirety, the crocodile motif appears as a chandelier, small table, stool, chair, bench and, in one of the artist's most masterful interpretations of the form, as the present desk and armchairs. Lalanne developed the technique of galvanoplastie , in which she uses a continuous electric current to apply a metal deposit on the surface of the object. Lalanne employs this technique alongside bronze casting to translate the crocodile's rough and scaly form and additional botanical elements into the textured surfaces of the present lots.Eulogizing his wife's work, François-Xavier Lalanne praised, "All she has to do is persuade the elements to marry each other by soldering, hammering, and filing them." Indeed, Claude Lalanne manipulates her materials with incredible skill and sensitivity to combine her crocodile, which forms the chair backrests and the desktop, with an ensemble of vegetal stems which give the pieces their structure. These organic curves and counter-curves culminate into deeply poetic compositions embellished with delicate bouquets of galvanoplastic cabbage leaves from the Lalannes' garden.The "Crocodile" armchairs and "Croco" desk epitomize the Surrealist influence that defines Lalanne's work. The significance of her work to the wider Surrealist dialogue of the period is eternalized in a period photograph of Max Ernst, pioneer of the Surrealism movement, sitting in one of these very chairs in the company of the artist. These lots are a unique opportunity to acquire three iconic works from the "Crocodile" series coming from the same collection.SUGGESTED LOTS Discover more upcomingAuctions From Sotheby's How liveauctions work Frooiti... read more

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