Claude de Soria was born in Paris in 1926 and died in Paris in 2015. Passionate about art from a young age, she took drawing lessons with André Lhote at the Grande Chaumière academy, then with Fernand Léger (1950) before discovering sculpture with Ossip Zadkine (1952). In 1953 she married and moved to the countryside for 10 years. During this period, Claude de Soria worked primarily with clay.
Once she returned to Paris, the artist was inspired by models that became more and more abstract: fruits, flowers…and the artists whose works she admired. Picasso at the Grand and Petit Palais (1966), Degottex (1967) then Hantaï (1968) at the Galerie Fournier, Giacometti (1969) at the Orangerie in the Tuileries, Matisse (1970) at the Grand Palais and the Bourgeois of Calais de Rodin. In 1972 the natural landscapes that she discovered during a trip to the Sahara elicited an internal earthquake in her. An uncertain period followed.
It is in part thanks to a bag of concrete left behind by one of the construction workers in the backyard of her studio that in 1973, she finds her path. From that instant she understood the possibilities she could explore from this volatile, malleable, buildable material. Over time she builds upon multiple experiments: different dosages and different qualities of concrete powder, sand, fiber, water, interior structures are tested as well as all sorts of containers and supports: glass, rhodoïd, tissue, paper…leading to a genesis of shapes: circles, squares, rectangles, spheres, cylinders…making sure to leave open the possibilities for chance: « I try, with my attitudes of vigilant listening, of availability, floating attention, to not miss any innovation by chance… » As mentioned by the artist this chance is more of a constant awareness of the material within the frame of a body of work that is always evolving and ready at all times to be requestioned and reworked. The process consists in an itinerary between two, the artist and her material, but without a long term goal. The exploration of multiple pathways is done with the intention to walk and explore, to enjoy the landscape that is present and to wait with enthusiasm the apparition around the corner, of a new panorama to admire.
Her works can be found today in different private and public collections and have been exhibited in numerous institutions: Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Musée Picasso (Antibes), Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), Musée National des Arts Décoratifs (Paris), Fondation Cartier (Paris), …