Valentine Schlegel
Valentine Schlegel | |
|---|---|
| Born | Valentine Rose Marie Renée Schlegel 23 November 1925 Sète |
| Died | 16 May 2021 Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Sculpture, ceramics, visual art |
Valentine Schlegel (Sète, November 23rd, 1925 – Paris, May 16th, 2021)[1][2] was a French sculptor and ceramicist.[3] Her most prominent works are the series of vases she created during the 1950s and her bespoke white plaster fireplaces.[4][5][6]
Biography
Early years
Valentine Schlegel was born and raised in Sète. Her paternal family were artisans, her grandfather was a carpenter, and her father owned a furniture upcycling workshop. She was the younger of three sisters: Andrée Vilar (1916-2009), artist, and Suzanne Schlegel-Fournier (1919-2007), photographer.[6] Her interest in art sparked from her childhood.
In 1937 she joined the French Federation of Girl Scouts. Her group was called Wakandas and it was there where she learnt about fire techniques and tool making, becoming their leader in 1942.[3]
Education
In 1942, she joined the Fine Arts School of Montpellier, where she mainly studied drawing and painting.[6][7]
Artistic career
Costume designer, stage manager and props specialist
In 1947, she started working for the Festival d'Avignon alongside her brother-in-law Jean Vilar.[1][8] For four years, she fulfilled the roles of costume designer, set painter, props specialist and the assistant of painter and decorator Léon Gischia,[7][3][8] to ultimately become the festival’s general director in 1951.
In 1954, Valentine Schlegel worked as artistic director in La Pointe Courte[9][10], Agnès Varda’s first feature film. Both artists met in school in Sète and maintained a lifelong friendship.[11][12]
In 1955, commissioned by Paul Claudel, she designs the set for L’Histoire de Tobie et de Sara.[3]
Ceramicist
In 1945 she moved to Paris, to Vavin street, where she discovered ceramics and sculpture with Frédérique Bourguet, a friend from the Fine Arts School. Together worked in practical tool making until 1951 and their pieces were influenced by the ancient Mediterranean ceramic tradition.[4][13]
From 1951 to 1957 she moved to an art studio in Daguerre street, and to a different one in Bezout street after 1957 where she continued exploring ceramics alongside her sister Andrée Vilar.[3][6] Here she begins exploring new materials and experimenting with plaster casts.
From 1954 to the 1960s, she worked on her own on a series of ceramic vases using the ancient coil technique[6][13], which in 1955 were exhibited in the La Roue gallery with other pieces by Elisabeth Joulia; and again in 1956 in La Demeure gallery alongside pieces by Mario Prassinos and Andrée Vilar.[3]
Artisan
During the 1950s, Valentine Schlegel travelled to Portugal, where she discovered Portuguese clay modelling that inspired her to make and collect nativity scene figurines.[3]
While in Sète, she would meet with friends to do wood and leather work, making new handbags, shoes, and kitchen utensils, and they would even sometimes do bed linen embroidery.[7] Her visits to Sète kept intact her love for the everyday object and her tradition of practical tool making.[4]
As a nature lover, she would also often create plant compositions for her ceramic vases, which were photographed by Agnès Varda and Anne Gaillard.[3]
Fireplaces and other decorative objects
From 1959 to 2002, assisted by Frédéric Sichel-Dulong, Schlegel designed and in-situ built around a hundred commissioned fireplaces. Some of the most notable ones were for Gérard Philipe y Jeanne Moreau.[4][14]
These fireplaces were made of stucco (white plaster) and they were decorated with shelves, nooks and benches. Their organic rounded shapes were partly inspired by the boat sails of her Mediterranean upbringing.[15]
- ^ a b Lavrador, Judicaël. "Mort de la sculptrice Valentine Schlegel, âtre contemporain". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "La céramiste Valentine Schlegel est morte". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2021-05-19. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Valentine Schlegel : [exposition, Brétigny-sur-Orge, CAC Brétigny du 30 septembre au 9 décembre 2017] | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b c d "The Long Overlooked Female Artist Who Made Everything From Fireplaces To Sandals". Something Curated. 2019-06-17. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ Lavrador, Judicaël. "Valentine Schlegel, l'art sans les manières". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b c d e "Hélène Bertin :"Valentine m'a incité à être plus libre"". France Culture (in French). 2019-09-09. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b c "Valentine SCHLEGEL | Cnap". www.cnap.fr. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b "Jean Vilar | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "Valentine Schlegel par Agnès Varda - Exposition présentée par Rosalie Varda". Galerie Nathalie Obadia. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "La pointe courte – Ciné-Tamaris" (in French). Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "Les plages d'Agnès | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "Agnès Varda : le cinéma et au-delà | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ a b "The Life and Work of French Sculptor Valentine Schlegel". TOAST. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
- ^ "Valentine Schlegel chemine au Crac de Sète - Les Inrocks". https://www.lesinrocks.com/ (in French). Retrieved 2023-04-28.
{{cite web}}: External link in|website= - ^ Jegsen, Cecilie (2018-08-15). "Archive: Valentine Schlegel". Kinfolk. Retrieved 2023-04-28.