Guy Lartigue

Statutory sculptor born in 1927 in Paris, Guy Lartigue is the inventor of the contemporary sculpture fountain in France.

From 1957 to 1999 he directed over 80 monumental sculptures, Sculptures fountains, massage shower and wall Animations controlled by Grands Ensembles and Malls, High Schools, public places, buildings and Halls Inputs Corporation, Monument historic.

Guy Lartigue is the artist's symbol in the city, the anima in the second half of the 20th century urban space by monumental forms, always moving, beating the pulse of the city by the magic of water . He has produced and installed 88 monumental sculptures in France and abroad.

A know-how of master copper, granite, marble, stainless steel, it adds the gift of a know-how that has made water its magical ally. Great artist, fascinated by the "harmony of the spheres," the beauty of the materials, it has become a real architect of the water, married with light, as the Fountain of the Promenade Larvotto in Monte Carlo, commanded by Prince Resnier in tribute to Princess Grace of Monaco in 1969, which is a celebration of this alliance.

He made the monumental its natural dimension, bringing with each of his works, a movement and a deep song that make the fountain a unique pleasure center, which allows us to see living forms in the fullness of their development. For the fountains of Guy Lartigue are living beings poetic.

A quality of the creation of the lines, thorough knowledge of the material, adds Guy Lartigue hydraulic science that allows us to provide the optical illusion of liquid enveloping film cascade jets of dazzling waves or transparent fine rain. And when everyone can evoke the memory of children's games and experience the power of the dream in the heart of our stone cities.

Guy Lartigue was born April 6, 1927 in Paris, two steps from the Place de l'Etoile, in the mansion of his grandfather, a recognized financial. His mother, Odette Hill a charming and lovely English at home, his father Maurice Lartigue, brother of photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, was the inventor of flying machines.

Between these thirteen and seventeen, in full occupation of France, Guy Lartigue built in his room his first monumental pieces; a wooden cathedral two meters high. Since then, it has always sought to create and build monumental works.

After the war, in 1947, at age 20, Guy Lartigue is training at Vavin, in the workshops of freedom, or it has made numerous busts sensitive. Then he discovered in Boulogne sur Seine metal cutting workshop, where he makes these first small figurines of zinc and mild steel, brass and finally copper.

He met an American patron whom he falls in love and moved on the Riviera. He will realize these first large sculptures including a "Triple sundial" in Lascère, "mobile giant" 12 meters high in Chambéry, the only figurative works on all of these creations.

Then Guy Lartigue moved to Paris and began working on command to municipalities, developers and architects in shopping malls, hotels, housing estates, schools and universities and public places. Examples; "Torque country" Rosny, "day and night" in Rosny, "Narcissus" in Lochères Teal, a model was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in 1972 and created his first monumental fountain in Marseille " Le Roy d'Espagne "followed by many others; Paris, Monaco, Saint Gratien, Saint Cyr, Sèvres, Montpellier, Rueil Malmaison, Angouleme, Puteaux, Viroflay, Cergy-Pontoise, Thonon-les-Bains, St-Pierre des Corps, Sucy en Brie, Achères, Brignolles, Angoulême Vénissieux, Istres, Saint-Cyprien, Chenove, Gaillon, Chatillon, Vélizy, Evry, Bordeaux, Marolles en Brie, Andresy, Verrières le Buisson, St Ouen, Sarcelles, Neuilly Sur Seine, St-Avold, Paris-La Défense, Rungis, St-Quentin en Yvelines, Rungis, Pointe à Pitre ...

Parisians know Guy Lartigue. His "Mouth of Truth", one of his latest monumental sculptures faces the University of Jussieu, celtic gray granite disc fixing passersby in a mute question, lets say that a philosophical point has been reached in our gaze, that of matter and the wave. Red copper basins constantly renewed "water games" at Carrefour Saint-Médard. At the heart of the Orchard, Forum des Halles, "The 4 balls" are dancing clear water in an endless waltz. The "Pyramid of water" facing the Parc de Bercy opposes its liquid and moving architecture with glass facades of this modern Parisian neighborhood.

"When the source became fountain, the square and the city surrounded the fountain, and the life was made around it. The play works by superficial temptation by cascatelle, sound designers jets of water massages "writes Guy Lartigue. Each town or Guy Lartigue has designed and installed a work, the artist adapts his message and inspiration, to give instead, these fountains, deep, gentle breathing.

He did not realize that fountains, he also created monumental works control, such as the Aquarium of Space, mobile giant fish suspended 7 meters Up to a new shopping center in 1973 in Rosny 2 or the "Monumental Signal" in Paris-La Défense, a nylon cable tapestry of 24 meters by 22 meters, and the bas-relief of a horse in full size, and his childhood memories in "Footprints" which recounts his memories of children's games with Niki Saint Phalle and Monique in the garden of Ranelagh, then aged 10 years.

Different medium sized pieces were acquired by the city of Tunis, the Museum of Fine Arts of New York, the City of Syracuse, the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris.

In 1976, he married ODILE GIBON, photographer, including a son born LARTIGUE BRICE, in 1967.

The choice to produce monumental works throughout his career, prevented by lack of time to make enough small pieces to interest galleries. However, he made more than a hundred sculptures and fountains in small sizes and models of projects that have never emerged, mainly copper, marble and brass, some of which were acquired by collectors in different world public sales or from some galleries in Paris and New York. His blindness that he stopped creating since the 2000s.

An exhibition of his work is in preparation for 2016 Espace Grange galerie, including the presentation of over 100 fountain models, he realized before becoming blind.