Attributed to Pierre SABATIER (1925–2003)

Pierre SABATIER (1925–2003) Large-scale interior wall installation consisting of ten panels of hammered and perforated copper. Two doors, one of which is slightly concave. Dimensions of the entire piece: Height: 224.5 cm Length: 45; 95.5; 94.5; 82.5; 91; 99.5; 100; 40; 45; 86, for a total of 779 cm (approximately). Provenance: An art collector’s apartment, Paris’s 8th arrondissement. Pierre Sabatier is one of the leading French sculptors of monumental art from the “Trente Glorieuses” era. Born in Moulins in 1925, he trained after the war at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs and then at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Very early on, he established his artistic approach within the dialogue between art and architecture, notably through commissions under the “1% Artistic” program. After working with ceramics and mosaics, Sabatier gradually shifted his focus, beginning in the late 1950s, toward metal, which became his material of choice. He explored all its possibilities—steel, copper, brass, tin, and aluminum—by hammering, chiseling, cutting, welding, burning, or oxidizing it to create surfaces with effects that are at once architectural, organic, and luminous. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, he collaborated with numerous architects and created monumental works integrated into public buildings, corporate headquarters, universities, and religious sites. A member of the “Le Mur vivant” movement beginning in 1966, he championed a conception of art closely linked to architecture. His body of work, comprising several hundred pieces, is notably represented in the collections of the Centre Pompidou.