François-Xavier Lalanne

In 1949, François-Xavier Lalanne studied drawing, sculpture and painting in Paris, working alongside Constantin Brancusi, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí. In 1952, he held his first personal painting exhibition in Paris.

In the 1950s, he decorated the new Parisian boutique at Dior avenue Montaigne, with the young assistant Yves Saint-Laurent. In 1956, he decided to work with his partner Claude, with whom he signed the Jardin des Halles, in Paris. He married Claude in 1967.

François-Xavier Lalanne is first known for his sculptures of animals, domestic (sheep) or wild (rhinoceros). Animals are also the central subject of his engraved work (Ordinary Bestiary 2, collection of plates prefaced by Patrick Mauriès).

He is the author of the three bronze geese that adorn the place of the goose market in Sarlat-la-Canéda, which was a fairground until the twentieth century, and where these farmyard animals were still sold until in the 1980s.

Until the end of his life, François-Xavier Lalanne lived and worked in Ury (Seine-et-Marne).