Claire Debril (1927-2001) - Lamp base in brown glazed stoneware

Claire Debril (1927-2021) Lamp base in speckled brown stoneware on an orange background. Circa 1970. Not signed but with certain provenance (from the estate of the artist's patron) Height: 20cm (excluding socket) Length: 22cm. Width: 18cm. In perfect condition, electrification to be redone. *Nicknamed the "lady with the coil", she developed a unique, poetic, and demanding body of work, characterised by a focus entirely on the notions of emptiness, fullness, and sculptural containment. She was introduced to pottery late in life at the Parisian studio of Bernard Soleil. It was from 1962 that she truly launched her career as a self-taught artist. She initially set up her kilns on Rue Château-Landon in Paris, before permanently moving her studio to Vincennes in 1972. Refusing to use the traditional potter's wheel, Claire Debril builds almost all of her forms using the ancestral method of coiling (layers of clay rolled and smoothed by hand). Deeply influenced by her aesthetic encounter with the great modernist sculptor Henri Laurens, she conceives her vases not as utensils, but as pure three-dimensional works of art. During her lifetime, she produced only a limited catalogue of around 600 unique pieces, making her work rare. Her works have been the subject of a comprehensive monograph (Claire Debril, the unveiled earth) and are now prominently featured in the national collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Cité de la céramique in Sèvres.