I first encountered the work of French sculptor Pierre Sabatier a few years ago, when I saw some archival photographs of his exceptional 1970s façade for boutique fashion and cosmetics brand Rochas in Paris. Alas no longer in existence, this façade, part architecture, part sculpture, appeared to hover in front of its building in a framework of curvilinear metal tubes. ‘He used different techniques, always experimenting and inventing new ways to treat materials; for example with numerous types of acid. My father was without exception deeply involved in his projects – he even invented many tools with which to work metal,’ recalls the artist’s son, Damien. He is the heir to the legacy of a long and prolific career, one that spans the best of postwar French monumental sculpture. His work is often connected to the canon of Modernist and Brutalist architecture and interiors.
‘His legacy includes around 300 projects, many of them closely linked to architecture,’ says Damien, who works as an advertising consultant at Publicis. He keeps his father’s memory alive through exhibitions and publications, and that involves fighting to preserve some of Sabatier’s works still in situ. ‘The problem is that my father never worked with galleries; he was never in the art market. Instead, he worked mainly with architects on architectural projects. Sometimes it is very difficult to protect his works. Many buildings were changed and the artworks inside were damaged.’
Pierre Sabatier was born in 1925 in Moulins in central France. After World War II he moved to Paris where, from 1949 to 1952, he studied at the National School of Decorative Arts and the National School of Fine Arts. After that, he devoted his career to sculpture for architecture. Many of his creations were made thanks to the regulations set up by André Malraux in the early 1950s, where 1 per cent of the budget of a public construction was allocated to a work of art.
While Pierre’s early works in the 1960s were mainly in ceramic and mosaic, he soon abandoned these in favour of working with metal, a material he preferred because he could hide the joints and fittings, resulting in a huge, unbroken surface. Under his special treatment – stamping, chiselling, hammering, cutting, burning, welding, corroding and polishing – all types of metal surfaces were alchemised into magical patterns and structural finishes. ‘His work was always very physical and material-driven, inspired by nature and disciplines like geology, volcanology and astronomy,’ explains Damien.
His projects are part of a Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’) golden age – a synthesis of different art disciplines into a democratic and humanistic environment. ‘He collaborated on the creation of Le Mur Vivant, a magazine and artistic movement created in 1965 with the support of Le Corbusier. It served as a manifesto promoting the integration of art and architecture,’ says Damien. Pierre was one of the most active members of the movement and collaborated with numerous prestigious architects, such as Maurice Novarina and Raymond Lopez, to fulfil this idealistic and holistic approach to architecture. Among his projects were headquarters of banks and insurance companies, as well as public buildings and spaces such as colleges, high schools, universities, prefectures, town halls and courthouses in France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
‘He started living in Paris when he came here to study after the war,’ explains Damien. ‘I remember living in this apartment in the 1950s. In the 1960s, my father was already working on large projects here. The second floor was always used as a showroom for different metal techniques and small artworks he presented to clients, architects and his partners.’ Despite the fact that Pierre worked mainly in his large countryside workshop in Aurouër with 15 people to help him, the Sabatiers’ family apartment in Paris always doubled as a smaller studio. ‘My father also collected objects of all kinds. Our place was a kind of cabinet of curiosities with natural objects, insects, skeletons and different forms of nature,’ says Damien. Alongside these finds were carefully selected furniture pieces, including Pierre’s favourite ‘Akari’ lamps by Isamu Noguchi.
The Sabatier family apartment in Paris has remained relatively unchanged since Pierre lived and worked here. A wooden table where the sculptor imagined and drew most of his monumental projects is still piled with files and drawings. Above it is his collection of magazines from the period, including Architecture Française and a complete set of Le Mur Vivant.
The most impressive feature in the apartment is a free-standing metal-and-ceramic fireplace designed by Pierre in the 1960s. ‘I have very good memories of it because I had lot of fun with my sister running around and sitting on its warm tiles during the winter,’ says Damien. It’s composed of an oxidised copper hood that allows the heat to diffuse, black lava stone and enamelled stoneware, incorporating ceramics by Yves Mohy from the French craft village of La Borne. The idea was to create a warm place for family and friends to gather around during cold Parisian winters.
At the same time that the fireplace was built, Pierre added a Japanese-inspired sliding door to the apartment and other interior details, such as a long stoneware bench, above which hangs a metal wall sculpture. ‘It was created in 1968 and is made of tin over worked brass with multiple layers that forms a latticework of metal,’ describes Damien. The artwork was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in 1978.
Despite his work being largely forgotten after his death in 2003, Pierre Sabatier has recently received the attention of the art world once again. ‘In 2016 we organised the first American retrospective of his work at New York–based Magen H Gallery, which also published his first catalogue,’ says Damien. ‘It’s a long process, but we are now working on another book.’
The Sabatier family apartment in Paris remains almost as it was. Pierre’s drawings, metalwork, maquettes and smaller sculptures are on display around the house, rendering it a kind of private archive. Although his works may disappear from public space, the apartment will remain a reference for and reminder of his legacy.
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