Camille Le Tallec, (November 9, 1906 - August 21, 1991) was a french porcelain craftman and artist.
Biography
Camille Le Tallec was born in Paris. He graduated in 1929 from the prestigious Ecole du Louvre (Paris, France) in 1929 with a thesis on the Nast porcelain during the 18th century. He then picked up, in 1930, the familial hand-painted porcelain studio founded in Belleville early in the century by his parents in Paris. Rapidly, Camille Le Tallec decided to perpetuate the french tradition of the Vincennes porcelain and Sèvres porcelain, expanding the small and local business into a worldwide famous studio, the Atelier Le Tallec. In thirty years, the studio created Limoges porcelain tablewares for the most prestigious personalities such as HM Elizabeth II of England, HM Mohammed V and HM Hassan II of Morroco, amongst others. In 1961, Camille Le Tallec started a fruitful collaboration the with silver and jewelry firm Tiffany & Co which led in 1990 to the Atelier Le Tallec's incorporation in the american company, one year before his death in Paris. Tiffany's and Camille Le Tallec designed successful original and private porcelain patterns that can be seen both at the Viaduc des Arts of the promenade plantée in Paris XIIe arrondissement and in all Tiffany's stores in the United-States. Atelier Le Tallec was inducted as a member of the Grands Ateliers de France (the fifty best studios in France) in 2000.
Over 60 years, Camille Le Tallec has maintained and transmitted an age-old french tradition of hand painted porcelain preserving and transmitting the savoir faire, but also revisiting, about 250 original and historical patterns.
Driven by passion but also professional requirements, Camille Le Tallec was also an important collector of various european manufactury porcelains. His exceptional collection was dispersed by auction in 1990, and some masterpieces acquired by international museums.
He was a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur appointed by Edgar Faure in 1976.
References
- Atelier Le Tallec Hand Painting Limoges Porcelain, Schiffer Publishing, 2003 (ISBN 0764317083)