The need to create 5

John Rewald portrait with Mont Ste. Victoire Pionteki Kehrlein


Coutelle's house in Ménerbes was a three story building which started it's days as a post relay station and auberge just under the "Citadelle" occupied by John Rewald, an art historian who wrote "The History of Impressionism", a Cezanne scholar, John had lived at the Chateau Noir in the 1920's! We had an intense relationship(I was the same age as his son who had died years earlier), talking for hours about art but also about life, as if I was his son. His home, the "Citadelle" was a small fortress dominating the village, full of art he had collected over his life.




Dora Maar seated Picasso




Next door to me lived Dora Maar in a house she had shared with Picasso in the 1930's who gave it to her at the end of their relationship. In her house were drawings by Picasso on the wall, I was extatic!


Ménerbes Nicolas de Staël 1953


Nicolas de Staël lived in the Chateau de Castellet at the end of the village until 1953.




Colombe Pionteki Kehrlein

My studio was was large and faced north, there were limestone quarries all over the countryside, I was in heaven. Besides sculpting literally tons of the local stone, I recuperated a block of Carrara marble I had left at Chateau Noir which became "Origine de Monde", (first exhibited in the Salon des Realities Nouvelles,Grand Palais, Paris, now at the Musée Campredon,L'Isle sur Sorgue,France). It was during this time I sculpted my first "Colombe" which I have done many variations of, in different stones and in bronze, over the years.

The need to create 4

Self Portrait 1980


For the next two years I did a lot of commissioned portraits and continued glazing my mothers portrait and my self portrait. In the end of 1980 I moved from the "city" and took a studio in the "Chateau Noir" on the road to Tholonet outside of Aix. Cezanne had a studio in the "Chateau" for 30 years where he painted the Montagne Sainte Victoire.


Chateau Noir- Mont St. Victoire Cezanne


From my room I had the view of the mountain! The Chateau was truely a magical place surronded by tall umbrella pines. I would take long walks in the footsteps of Cezanne. My favorite place was the Bibemus quarry where the Romans first took stone to build Aix.



Bibemus quarry Cezanne


It was here in the quarry, looking at all the beautiful luminescent orange stone, that I started to have urgings to sculpt. And sculpt I did! How ironic, here i was in a place where Cezanne had painted his "flat depth" architectual views of THE mountain and the surrondings and I was sculpting voluptuous forms in stone!


"Demeter" Bimemus stone





Demeter was my first sculpture. It is now in the courtyard of the Hospital in Pertuis in memory of Dr. Catherine Baret who died in a tragic car accident. Catherine was a good friend of mine who commissioned me to paint the maternity in Pertuis. For her my Demeter epitomized maternity




"Cephale" Marbre de Carrare




In 1983 "I left Provence and stayed the summer in Carrare, Italy where I sculpted "Cephale, (exhibited in the Salon des Réalitiés Nouvelles, Grand Palais,Paris,1987). In the fall I moved on, to Paris, working in the Studio of René Coutelle, where I eventually became the head sculptor and responsible of the studio. René introduced me to granit,Maurice Lipsi and the Parisien "Art World".


" Phallos" Exposition Gallery Valmay Paris 1984




Coutelle gave me the keys to a house he owned in Ménerbes in the south of France and On the first day of spring 1985 I started a new and wonderous adventure.