YVES MOHY (1928-2004) - Lot 104

YVES MOHY (1928-2004) Large flared bowl. Stoneware proof. Signed MOHY towards the base. Height: 13cm - Diameter: 23cm Provenance: Galerie Mercier & Associés, Paris: Galerie Mercier & Associés, Paris. With a dual training in architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and ceramics at the École des Métiers d'Art, Yves Mohy settled in La Borne with his wife Monique Lacroix (1931-2024) in 1955 - a village with a pottery tradition, the key to a return to the land, which he visited several times as a student and which revealed to him the importance of stoneware in his artistic approach. There, with Jean and Jacqueline Lerat (1913-1992) & (1920-2009) and Élisabeth Joulia (1925-2003) in particular, he was to contribute to a renewal of the history of this medium. Initially focusing on utilitarian pieces, his ceramic production soon turned to sculptures and highly constructed pieces. Like the Lerats, Yves Mohy questions shapes, volumes, light, materials and objects. Their shared interest in contemporary creation, their many exchanges and the exhibitions they visit are no strangers to this reflection, which resonates undeniably with Mohy's training as an architect, and from which increasingly sculptural and architectural pieces are born. Yves Mohy works with stoneware in all its purity, highlighting the material for its own sake in a play of shapes by working on the [face reading]. He assembles slabs of geometric cross-section - square, rectangle, triangle - in solid-looking constructions - not without a few cracks, scarifications or soft edges, which show that his work remains rooted in a sensitive approach. It is precisely this balance that makes his work so compelling. Their power is reflected in the impression of monumentality they exude - even though their dimensions rarely exceed 70 centimetres in height. Our Lentille vase is a perfect illustration of Mohy's work as a sculptor-ceramist: the vase is no more than a pretext for experimenting with the assembly of two circular flat surfaces which, when united, bring the material itself, its monumentality and the play of color and light on its surface, into the realm of contemporary creation. Mohy plays with the vocabulary of both sculpture and painting, building up his ceramics through the juxtaposition of highly constructed planes and volumes, and creating irregular surfaces through nuances of color, but also through the addition or removal of material - like his work on our Mastaba sculpture or our Architecture lamp. Yves Mohy's one-of-a-kind creations quickly earned him a reputation for exhibiting his work in renowned galleries, and for producing porcelain editions for Virebent. From the 1970s onwards, he moved regularly: to Paris, the Lot and the Hérault, before returning to the Cher. He also taught in Bourges and Limoges - in keeping with the need to pass on his art. From 1984-1985, he integrated a wide range of materials into his creations - wood, iron, slate and porcelain, among others - pursuing the quest for confrontation between forms and materials that has always driven his plastic research.