LALIQUE, MARIE CLAUDE

Marie-Claude Lalique (French, 1935 ~ 2003) Marie-Claude, who graduated from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs de Paris, wanted to be a theatrical designer, but her father drew her into the company as a child by taking her with him to the factory, where artisans created a menagerie of fragile glass animals for her.

She often said that her father told her, “If some day you happen to like our profession, you will soon find out that you cannot give it up.”

And, indeed, almost two decades after she took over the company, she was quoted as saying she loved working with glass because when you start, “it is powdery and dirt in a lot of ways. Then it becomes a flaming, molten thing and then after you work with it, it is a vase. There’s something very beautiful about that.”

Marie Claude introduced perfume, more jewellery and special edition pieces and brought more colour into Lalique designs. While her grandfather used to begin by drawing his subjects, Marie-Claude Lalique modelled hers in plastiline, an earlier form of plasticine. She took her inspiration from nature and her numerous travels, particularly to Africa. She perpetuated her grandfather’s bestiary tradition, adding more exotic specimens such as lions, panthers and zebras.