Valentine Schlegel

Valentine Schlegel (23 November 1925 – 16 May 2021) was a French sculptor and ceramicist. Her most prominent works are the series of vases she created during the 1950s and her bespoke white plaster fireplaces. Her style could be considered as Modernist organic abstraction.

Early life and education Valentine Schlegel was born and raised in Sète, Occitania, southern France. Her paternal family were artisans, her grandfather was a carpenter, and her father owned a furniture upcycling workshop. Her elder sisters were the artist Andrée Vilar (1916–2009) and the photographer Suzanne Schlegel-Fournier (1919–2007).

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. For four years, she fulfilled the roles of costume designer, set painter, props specialist and the assistant of painter and decorator Léon Gischia,

In 1954, Valentine Schlegel worked as artistic director in La Pointe Courte, Agnès Varda’s first feature film. Both artists met in school in Sète and maintained a lifelong friendship.

In 1955, commissioned by Paul Claudel, she designs the set for L’Histoire de Tobie et de Sara.

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.

As a nature lover, she would also often create plant compositions for her ceramic vases, which were photographed by Agnès Varda and Anne Gaillard.

These fireplaces were made of stucco (white plaster) and they were decorated with shelves, nooks and benches. Their organic and sinuously rounded shapes were partly inspired by the boat sails of her Mediterranean upbringing.

She had many assistants throughout her career, among them were Frédéric Sichel-Dulong, one of her past students; Catherine Bouroche, Marie-Noël Verdier, Claudie Sichel-Dulong, Francis Bérezné, Philippe Cotta, Christian Desse, Vincent Fournier and Blaise Fournier. Cette femme pourrait dormir dans l'eau in the CAC de Brétigny in 2017, by Hélène Bertin. Valentine Schlegel, Tu m’accompagneras à la plage? in Sète in 2019 in the CRAC, by Hélène Bertin. Valentine Schlegel par Agnès Varda, Galerie Nathalie Obadia in París, 2020. Valentine Schlegel, l'art pour quotidien, curated by the Musée Fabre at the hotel Cabrières-Sabatier d’Espeyran in Montpellier, 2023.