A visit to Claude de Soria’s Studio
Born in 1926 in Paris, Claude de Soria was a French sculptor who specialized in making pieces in cement.
She began following drawing classes in the 1970s, then fell in love with sculpture after taking classes with Ossip Zadkin.
Her work takes inspirations from increasingly abstracts forms – from flowers to discs and blades…
Claude de Soria’s first sculpture was a reproduction of Picasso’s Buste work. She described working on it as being a sort of epiphany : never before had the process of creation sparked such joy for her.
“I am cement.”
Claude de Soria discovered cement by accident or as she likes to describe it, by “miracle”, when one of the workers in her studio left a sack of cement in her courtyard.
She started to explore the material and create her first pieces of work – most of the result of experimentation and happy accidents.
de Soria liked to work in series. She began by making the Disques (1974) in cement and then print in Rhodoid, then the Boules (1976-1977) which are assembled with two half-spheres, then Fruits (1978) and Plis (1979).
Her most famous works has to be the series of Tiges (1979), Plis Plats (1981), the Lames (1984) or Ouvertures (1987).
Claude de Soria’s Paris atelier showcases more than 2200 pieces of her work – some of which are for sale – as well as including her archives an a library.
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