Rene Lalique apprenticed with the Parisian jeweler, Louis Aucoc at the age of 16. Then from 1878-1880 he attended Sydenham Art College in London, England. After returning to France, he worked for Aucoc, Cartier, Boucheron and others.

He became a freelance designer for several top jewelery houses in Paris and four years later established his own jewelery workshop. By 1890, he was recognized as one of France's foremost Art Nouveau jewelery designers; creating innovative pieces for Samuel Bing's new Paris shop, La Maison de l'Art Nouveau. He went on to be one of the most famous in his field, his name synonymous with creativity and quality and Lalique Crystal is now a household name.

The old jewel was based upon the idea of wealth; the new is built upon an artistic idea." Jewelry had relied on gems, particularly diamonds, and on precious metals. But between about 1892 and 1897 he developed an approach that emphasized artistry over intrinsic value.

Rene avoided using precious stones and the conservatively classical settings favored by other leading jewelers of the time. Rather, he combined semiprecious stones with such materials as enamel, horn, ivory, coral, rock crystal, and irregularly shaped Baroque pearls in settings of organic inspiration, frequently accentuated by asymmetrical curves or elaborate flourishes. He especially loved the ever-changing iridescence of opals.



In the 1920s he also became famous for his work in the Art Deco style. Among other things he was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and the elegant glass columns which filled the dining room and grand salon of the SS Normandie.

Recognized as one of the world's greatest glass makers and jewelery designers of the art Nouveau and art Deco periods, he was an imaginative and creative artist in all his work. His early life was spent in many different types of artistic businesses, acting as apprentice and assistant.

This heavily influenced the designs he used in his later life, including his emphasis on glass. He used the most modern and innovative manufacturing techniques and equipment available, allowing more than one glass piece to be made at a time while still looking hand made, which meant his quality jewelery was available to the general public.

His early life was spent learning the methods of design and art he would use in his later life. He was born on the 6th April, 1860, in the town of Ay, France. At the age of two his family moved to a suburb of Paris due to his father's work, but traveled to Ay for summer holidays.



These trips to Ay influenced his later naturalistic glasswork. When he was twelve, he entered the Collège Turgot where he started drawing and sketching. With the death of his father two years later, he began working as an apprentice to the goldsmith Louis Aucoq in Paris, and attending evening classes at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. He worked here for two years and then moved to London to attend the Sydenham Art College for two years. At the Sydenham Art College, his skills for graphic design were improved, and his naturalistic approach to art was further developed. When he returned from England, he worked as a freelance artist, designing pieces of jewelery for French jewelers. Following this, he opened a business in 1885, and designed and made his own jewelery and other glass pieces for the rest of his life.



Many things influenced his work, including the natural environment, and the art Nouveau and art Deco periods. The summer holidays he spent at Ay, in France, and the time he spent at the Sydenham College of Art in London, heavily influenced his naturalistic work. As a result, many of his jewelery pieces and vases showcase plants, flowers and flowing lines.

Bibliography

* "The Essential Rene Lalique" by William Warmus. New York: Abrams, 2003.

By 1900, Rene had reached the pinnacle of his jewelry career. He exhibited at the Exposition Universelle Internationale in Paris and won international praise for the way that he intertwined symbolism and naturalism. However, dismayed by the way that his work was constantly being copied, Rene's attention began to drift away from his jewelry "art forms" and toward glassmaking.



By 1909, Rene had begun making perfume bottles for Coty. Prior to this time, most perfumes were sold in plain bottles. He drew upon his experience and created bottles that evoked the nature of the perfume that they contained. By the Nineteen Twenties, he was also creating bottles for some of the greatest French perfumeries of the era: Houbigant, d'Orsay and Molinard to name but a few.



Within a few years, his glassmaking talents had expanded to include: statuettes, vases, tableware, bowls and, amongst other things, architectural panels. These panels could be found aboard the greatest ocean liners of the day and decorating the dining car of The Orient Express.



It didn't stop there. His glass mascots could be found adorning the hood of many of the more luxurious cars of the Roaring Twenties. Indeed, these are the most sought after collectibles today.



His factory closed in 1939 for the duration of World War II. Unfortunately, Rene died on the 5th May 1945 and never witnessed its reopening.

"The style comes from an artistic gesture, outlining a drawing in total osmosis with crystal, a style that one easily recognises through the manual modelling of the shapes and patterns, as if sculptured, the richness of the figurative details..."