Philippe Hiquily was a French sculptor born in 1925 and died in 2013.

After a brief admission at the Orléans Beaux-Arts, he went to the Paris Beaux-Arts and followed classes in the Alfred Janniot’s and Marcel Gimond’s workshops. He became friend with César, Albert Férau, Michel Guino. Modeling, study after living model, plaster, clay, ceramic works, he had a complete training to become a sculptor. He graduated in 1953 with the first prize of sculpture.
Thanks to his Hellenistic father, he discovers the Ancient Greek culture and felt in love with archeology. The callipygian Venus will stay throughout his career a great source of inspiration.

In 1954 he settled his workshop in the 14th district of Paris where there already were a lot of artist’s workshops, as the one of Germaine Richier who supported him at the begining of his career.
Between surrealism and abstraction, Philippe Hiquily did not take part of any artistic movement. However, we can see a true unity in his work. His first period was marked by the use of poor materials such as the metal. He worked with the “direct metal” technic by embossing, molding and welding the material. Despite a visible simplification of the shapes, the Hiquily’s works remind his research for equilibrium. His first mobiles are dated from 1954 and the following year the museum of modern art in Paris purchased “L’Homme à la Bicyclette”.
Hiquily worked on all the scales, from the jewelry to the monumental. His “Marathoniennes” and weathercocks have numerous dimensions. In 1964, the artist introduced some daily life objects in his compositions which became more erotic. The fertility Goddess, “mother-objects” from the beginning of the 60’s turned intosome polished and smooth women bodies. In 1966, he gave up the sheet metal for the brass, a bendable and bright material which allows this transition.
Philippe Hiquily also created furniture pieces. Thanks to an exhibition at the gallery Claude Bernard in 1964, he met the viscountess of Noailles who asked him to create a piece of furniture with a slab of porphyry. The interior designer Henri Samuel was excited by this creation and will ask him to create more pieces.
Henri Samuel was one of the most French interior designers at this time. Aesthete and erudite, he was the representative of the French decorative arts. Called for the restoration of the Empire rooms in the Château de Versailles or for the set up of the 17th and 18th century pieces of the MET in NY, he was also sensitive to the contemporary creation and already collaborated with César, François Arnal, Diego Giacometti or Guy de Rougemont. He liked the sensual and soft shapes of Hiquily’s creations and associated him to his most important realizations such as the Edmond de Rothschild executive office, the living room of Robert Haas but also the apartments of Philippe de Rothschild, Teddy van Zuylen, Louise de Vilmorin or Jacqueline Delubac.