François-Xavier Lalanne

Galerie La Hune, Paris

Private collection, Paris acquired from the above circa 1976-1977

Gifted to the present owner in 1983

Private collection, Paris

Lalanne, exhibition catalogue, Plaza of the Americas, Dallas, 1^st April - 15 May, 1986 n.p

Les Lalanne. Claude et François-Xavier Lalanne, exhibition catalogue, Marisa Del Re Gallery, New-York, May - June 1988, n. p.

Daniel Abadie, Lalanne(s), Paris, 2008, p. 182

A singular creature from the imagination of François-Xavier Lalanne, the Petit Lapin à vent occupies a special place in the artist's bestiary. Conceived in the late 1960s, this hybrid animal (rabbit's head, bovine legs, bird's wings and fish tail) blurs our reference points, while awakening a strange familiarity in the viewer.

Inspired by the Lapin de Tourtour, imagined as a weather vane whose large ears capture the wind to orientate the head on a pivoting axis, our version is distinguished by its more intimate format. Stripped of its meteorological function, the rabbit becomes an object of contemplation, both enigmatic and touching.

At the crossroads of surrealism and fable, our sculpture embodies the poetic approach of François-Xavier Lalanne, for whom the animal was a link between dream and reality, art and everyday life.

FX Lalanne

Preparatory drawing for the sculpture Lapin à vent

Circa 1968

Black ink on paper

© DR Archives Lalanne