Grand ours

In the words of François-Xavier Lalanne, “the animal world has the richest and most varied forms on the planet”. The artist created a bestiary to adorn gardens and parks. The influence of François Pompon can be seen in his animal sculptures. With their elegant, minimalist curves, his pieces reflect a search for deep simplicity. The bronze animals are life-size or oversized. Lalanne also drew inspiration from ancient Egyptian sculptures, with painstaking details: paws, muzzles, ears, fins... Three of his pieces can be found on the sculpture path: Grande carpe, Âne attelé and Grand Ours.

François-Xavier Lalanne is a French sculptor and engraver born in Agen in 1927. He died in Ury (Seine-et-Marne) in 2008. He studied drawing, painting, and sculpture at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and Constantin Brancusi – who occupied a workshop next door to his in Paris.
After focusing first on painting, he became famous as a decorator and then a sculptor, working solo and also on joint creations with his wife Claude Lalanne. He took his inspiration from nature to create a bestiary, with a particular predilection for sheep. He turned animals into original pieces of furniture. A rhinoceros became a brass desk, sheep became chairs or benches, he turned a baboon into a fireplace, a hippo into a bathtub... Prestigious collectors such as the Rothschilds, the Noailles, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé helped establish his international renown.