Philippe Hiquily (France, 1925 – 2013)

Philippe Hiquily is a French sculptor, born in 1925 in Paris. He attended the National School of Fine Arts in Paris from 1948 to 1953, mixing with César, Michel Guino and Albert Féraud.  In 1953 Hiquily left the Beaux-Arts after winning the Prix de Sculpture for his piece Neptune, later, in 1959, he received the prize for criticism at the Paris’ Biennale.

In the mid 1950’s he develops his “direct metal” technique, consisting of autogenous welding, inspired by Julio Gonzalez (modern Spanish sculptor known for his expressive ironwork) and the ancient Greeks. He collaborated with the sculptors Jean Tinguely and Germaine Richier, with whom he made pedestal sculptures. At that time, he created his first mobiles: Fontaine Mobile (1954), Automate (1955) and Danseur de Corde (1955). His first exhibition was in 1955 at the Galerie de Palmes in Paris.  Since 1956 he exhibited regularly at the Salon de Mai (until 1986) and the Young Sculpture in Paris. His second solo exhibit was at the Galerie Dragon (1958).

The trans-Atlantic success came quickly for Hiquily. At his exhibit at The Contemporaries Gallery in New York in 1959, he met the greats of American art (Leo Castelli, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Jaspers Johns and Rosenquist, Isamu Noguchi and others). All the pieces were sold the night of the vernissage, and Guggenheim Museum bought a sculpture: Jeux de H. Hiquily achieved instant stardom and for the next three months was living the life of parties, dinners and receptions at Rockefeller Center with Noguchi.

Starting from early 1960s he turned to furniture design.  In 1964 he was asked to create a small piece of furniture from porphyry, which eventually caught the attention of Henry Samuel (the decorator who had already worked with César, Arnal, Diego Giacometti and Rougemont), who commissioned Hiquily to create furniture in brass for his clientele.

In 1965 Jean-Luc Godard films “Paris vu par …,” in which Hiquily played himself as a sculptor. Chabrol, Rouch and Rohmer met there in their debut. That same time Hiquily went to Canada to participate in a symposium during which he creates La Caravelle, a steel mobile measuring 5 meters tall, kept at the Museum of Modern Art of Montréal. Late 1960s Hiquily abandons rusted sheet metal for the more malleable brass for technical reasons.

In the late 1970s Hiquily started a new series of mobile pieces until 1984, particularly fountains, Fontaine-mobile I (1978) and Water Games (1982); mobile sculptures activated by a steel ball, Bill Trappe, Poly-Games (1981) and La Chute (1982), and by an electric motor, Sinusoidal Lady (1984) and Jack Hammer (1984).

In the mid 1980s he began working with bronze as the main medium around after being offered a contract for the production of a series of bronzes. His work is then exhibited for the first time at the Galerie Patrice Trigano in Paris.

The sculptures of Hiquily are characterized by a pervasive eroticism, that translates into a smooth universe filled with elements borrowed from nature (antennas, horns, insect legs etc. The search for formal balance is obvious. He works mostly from recyclable materials.