André Lasserre
Born in 1902.
Died in 1981.
André Lasserre (Veyrier, 1902 – Lausanne, 1981) was a Swiss sculptor and draughtsman whose career unfolded between Paris and Lausanne. Trained under Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, he established himself in 1920s Montparnasse through his studies and sculptures of animals. Two solo exhibitions at the Galerie Zborowski, in 1926 and 1928, drew attention to his work.
He spent long periods observing animals at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle and the Jardin des Plantes; his brush drawings on silk paper also testify to his interest in Japanese art.
Lasserre’s sculpture sought a condensed form capable of conveying movement and muscular tension without multiplying details. La Panthère, circa 1926, held at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, offers a particularly telling example. Carved from Amboyna burl, it makes use of the wood’s grain and inherent stresses: the planes flow into one another, while the volume remains compact, almost mineral.
The choice of dense, richly coloured materials — precious woods, porphyry or stone from Lézinnes — brings this quest close to the sensibility of Art Deco. After settling in Lausanne in 1951, Lasserre subsequently turned towards Constructivist abstraction, extending his interest in the organisation of forms in space.
