Valentine SCHLEGEL (1925)

Valentine Shlegel was born in Sète into a family of furniture upholsterers.
Originally passionate about sport, she turned towards art in 1942 when she entered the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Montpellier. Schlegel was exceptionally gifted, and completed her studies in two instead of five years. Afterwards, she moved to Paris to devote herself to ceramics.
At first Valentine Schlegel engraved tiles that she would decorate with slip, and she only began to use a wheel in 1950, inspired primarily by the plant world. Hand shaped or turned, her pots were coated in dark-coloured slip, each one conceived in accordance with the flowers it was intended to hold.
In 1957, the gallery La Demeure exhibited her new works. The sale of two pieces to museums meant that her work was presented internationally.
Valentine Shlegel then became interested in a new material, plaster, which led her to gradually leave ceramics to one side. It was with the help of one of her pupils that she began, in 1959, to create her astonishing plaster mantelpieces.
In 1962 she participated in the exhibition ‘L’Objet’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Since then, she continued to draw and to sculpt clay.