I was attracted to the unconventionality of the vase and flowers. Both wore a brilliant color of gold, and the flowers looked so real as their blossoms hung limply on the stems. How different.
The auction house described the work as a “gilt bronze flower vase sculpture.” I just knew it was striking. It was the work of Hubert Le Gall, an artist whose name was new to me. That was fine because I love to discover new artists – contemporary and veteran.
Googling, I saw that Le Gall was indeed a designer of the imaginative. He takes every-day functional items and makes them into works of arts that can still to be used and enjoyed. His works are fun and playful, as described by one website.
Le Gall is a self-taught French artist. His furniture is “poetic and functional,” according to another site. “He plays on shapes, light and colours by combining unusual ideas and working with various materials such as wood, glass, resin or ceramics. Bronze remains his favourite material.”
And another: “Hubert Le Gall’s work is a world between art and design, filled with animals, flowers and of his own world and fantasy.”
This vase was definitely unusual – and amusing, just as others of his works on the web. Perhaps that’s also why I was drawn to the vase among the items in a recent online auction. I also came across two other works by Le Gall. Actually, they were two of the same black table.
The table had flowers as its top, long metal stems as legs and a wide flat base. It was black patinated bronze and stood at 19 ½” tall. I saw a similar table on a retail site that described it as a side table titled “Warhol,” from an edition of eight, signed and numbered by the artist.
Each of Le Gall’s pieces at this auction were signed and number, and each was from an edition of eight. They also had some wear – the vase, a few smudges and the tables, some scratches and spill stains. Obviously, not enough marks for buyers to not go after them.
The vase of flowers, which was 15″ tall, sold for $5,000. One table sold for $11,000 and the other, $14,000. Since these were sold on the secondary market from a previous buyer, they were sold for less than retail price. One retail site was selling his works from around $6,000 up to $72,000.
