Claude is interested in botany. "In my childhood, I was fascinated by a great-uncle who was a gardener in his spare time. Every morning, he made me lift the greenhouses and every evening close them. He taught me all the flowers..." she confided. The "explorer" works directly on the forms until her sculpture becomes more precise. She chooses bamboos, ginkgo or hosta leaves that she picks in her garden and transmutes them before assembling them into a mirror, a table or a piece of jewelry.
She notably uses electroplating. This technique allows her to take the imprint of a flower or a branch by depositing metal - silver, bronze, copper - by means of an electric current. She also molds bodies, which she combines with natural elements for poetic and surrealist works.
Until her last breath, Claude worked every day, from 8am to noon, then from 1:30pm to 5pm, she said. She had just finished a monumental staircase for the American architect Peter Marino, a great patron of the Lalanne's who became a close friend. For him, Claude imagined in 2007 a bench adapted to the Dior boutique on Avenue Montaigne, an oval piece with interlacing ginkgo leaves in bronze and a bouquet of hydrangeas in its center.

LOT n°19 Claude Lalanne Claude LALANNE (1925-2019) - Ensemble de couverts comprenant : Deux petites cuillers escargots ( dont une en argent), deux fourchettes à trois dents en métal, deux fourchettes à deux dents en métal, deux…    Fiche détaillée