ÉLISABETH JOULIA (1925-2003) - Lot 111

ÉLISABETH JOULIA (1925-2003) Breast Sculpture. stoneware. Signed JOULIA under the base. Height: 5cm - Diameter: 8cm Provenance: - Collection Mme N.C. (work directly offered to her by the artist). - Galerie Mercier & Associés, Paris. - Private collection. - Galerie Thomas Fritsch, Paris. Exhibitions: - Grès- Galerie Mercier & Associés, Paris, from December 11, 2015 to February 19, 2016. Our work exhibited at this event. - Design Miami/Basel - Galerie Thomas Fritsch, Basel, from June 14 to 19, 2022. Our work exhibited at this event. ÉLISABETH JOULIA (1925-2003) Initially trained as a fresco artist, Élisabeth Joulia discovered ceramics with Jean Lerat before settling in 1949 in La Borne, a major stoneware center, where she would become a leading figure. Rejecting convention, she developed an instinctive and organic practice, based on direct work with clay, modeled exclusively by hand. Her work is rooted in a sensitive abstraction that resonates with nature and the body, often the female form. Through emblematic series - Chestnuts, Hatching, Almonds - she explores the essence of forms and living things. From the 1970s onwards, her volumes gained in breadth and sensuality, then became purer with the introduction of white stoneware. A key figure in post-war ceramics, her work, nourished by spirituality and travel, tends towards the universal.