Enfilade

From the press release for the upcoming BGC exhibition (note the new dates) . . . 

Sèvres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 until Today
Bard Graduate Center, New York, 10 September — 16 November 2025

Curated by Tamara Préaud, Soazig Guilmin, Charlotte Vignon, and Susan Weber

Sèvres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 until Today presents the history of the Sèvres Manufactory and its production of extraordinary sculptural objects in various ceramic pastes. Organized by Sèvres, Manufacture et Musée nationaux, and Bard Graduate Center (BGC), the exhibition is the first outside of France to highlight the production of sculpture made at the famed porcelain manufactory.

Etienne-Maurice Falconet, L’Amour menaçant (Threatening Love), 1758/61, Manufacture de Sèvres, soft-paste porcelain biscuit (Manufacture et Musée nationaux, Sèvres, MNC 27724.1).

From extravagant Rococo to restrained Neoclassical, from romantic, neo-Gothic inventions to the elegant curves of the Art Nouveau or the geometries of the Art Deco, and in partnership with artists associated with Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop art, Sèvres has continually pushed the boundaries of ceramic production, creating objects that are neither functional nor decorative but rather art that it simply calls ‘sculpture’. One of the main characteristics of the manufactory, from its origins in the disused premises of the Château de Vincennes until the present day, is the unsurpassed variety of its production. The exhibition considers the term ‘sculpture’ in its broadest sense and features three-dimensional vases, centerpieces for a dining table, clocks, inkstands, and rare cups and saucers alongside more expected objects such as busts, figures, and medallions. This approach presents the history of the Sèvres Manufactory through a lesser-known part of its production while highlighting the significant roles of artists, designers, and architects, whose designs represent a microcosm of larger developments in art and culture.

The exhibition reveals the roles of chemical and technological advances as well as artistic innovations in the manufactory’s success, and it presents approximately two hundred works from the collection of Sèvres, Manufacture et Musée nationaux, in ceramic, soft- and hard-paste porcelain, faïence, and stoneware. Other objects highlight the long process of making a sculpture at Sèvres, from initial design to its final painted decoration. These items—sketched, drawn, or engraved sources as well as terra-cotta models and plaster molds—represent the institution’s rich, diverse, and mostly unknown archives.

Situating sculpture produced at the Sèvres Manufactory in the larger context of French history from 1740 through the twenty-first century, the exhibition tells the story of Sèvres’s relationship to French political power. As a royal, imperial, and then a national manufactory, Sèvres was regularly called upon to produce elaborate porcelain dinner, tea, and coffee services, as well as vases and other objects to be used as diplomatic gifts or to adorn the residences of the French elite.

The exhibition is organized chronologically and occupies all four floors of the Bard Graduate Center Gallery. It reflects the manufactory’s history of collaborations with innovative artists and architects to create new forms and designs aligned with the fashions of their time. Featured works from eighteenth-century artists and designers include those of Jean-Claude Duplessis and Louis-Simon Boizot, among others. Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, and Auguste Rodin represent important collaborations of the nineteenth century. Jean Arp, Louise Bourgeois, and Ettore Sottsass are among the artists whose work demonstrates the manufactory’s artistic output in the twentieth century; and creations by Yayoi Kusama, Johan Creten, Jim Dine, Kristin McKirdy, and Betty Woodman reflect Sèvres’s ongoing commitment to working with the most important living artists of the day.

Bard Graduate Center will schedule a number of public events associated with the exhibition. A symposium for scholars and curators is expected to feature Judith Cernogora and Viviane Mesqui, Conservatrices de musée, Sèvres; Tamara Préaud, former archivist of the Sèvres Manufactory; and Linda Roth, Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

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Three Centuries of Innovation at Sèvres: A Research Symposium
Friday, 20 September 2024, 1:30–5:30pm

1.00  Introduction by exhibition curator Charlotte Vignon

2.00  Session A
• Tamara Préaud (Manufacture nationale de Sèvres) — Dynasties of Sculptors at Sèvres
• Viviane Mesqui (Manufacture nationale de Sèvres) — Re-editions Serving Heritage at the Sèvres Manufactory: Sèvres Beehive Vases from 1769 to 2024

3.15  Coffee break

3.45  Session B
• Linda Roth (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum) — Taxile Doat: Sculptor, Decorator, and Studio Potter at Sèvres
• Soazig Guilmin (Manufacture nationale de Sèvres) — The Art of Light and Sculpture: A Legacy of the Sèvres Manufactory
• Judith Cernogora (Manufacture nationale de Sèvres) — Luxury and Extravagance: Contemporary Furniture in Sèvres Porcelain

5.15  Concluding remarks

Registration information is available here»

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Tamara Préaud, Sevres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 Until Today (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024), 600 pages, ISBN: 978-0300278750, $85.

The accompanying catalogue is the first large-scale, English-language publication to explore the production of sculpture created by the famed French manufactory from its eighteenth-century origins to the present. Published by Bard Graduate Center and distributed by Yale University Press, this richly illustrated volume is primarily written by Tamara Préaud, who held the position of archivist at the Sèvres Manufactory for more than forty years and today is considered one of the most important historians of the manufactory. Additional texts were written by Guilhem Scherf, curator of sculpture at the Louvre Museum; Soazig Guilmin, head of the registrar’s department and art historian at the Sèvres Museum; Judith Cernogora, curator of contemporary art at the Sèvres Museum; and Florence Rionnet, curator at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper, Brittany. The volume is edited by Susan Weber and Charlotte Vignon.

c o n t e n t s

Unless otherwise noted, all text by Tamara Préaud

Introduction
•  French Sculpture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Historical Context and Stylistic References — Guilhem Scherf
•  Sculpture in France from the Belle Époque to Pop Art — Florence Rionnet

Part I | General Considerations
1  Materials and Production — Tamara Preaud with Soazig Guilmin
2  Salaries and Prices
3  Imitations, Copies, Overmoldings, and Marks

Part II | History
4  The Eighteenth Century
5  The Directorship of Alexandre Brongniart
6  The Second Half of the Nineteenth Century, 1848–91
7  The Twentieth Century
8  Two Decades of Contemporary Art at Sèvres, 2000–20 — Judith Cernogora
9  Sales and Deliveries after 1941 — Soazig Guilmin

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Note (added 9 September 2024) — The posting was updated to include information on the symposium.

Note (added 6 September 2025) — The posting was updated with the exhibition’s new dates. It was originally slated to be on view from 21 September 2024 to 5 January 2025 but closed early due to building maintenance issues.