Camille Le Tallec

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Camille Le Tallec, (November 9, 1906 - August 21, 1991) was a French porcelain craftman and artist.

[edit] Biography

Camille Le Tallec was born in Paris. He graduated in 1929 from the prestigious École du Louvre (Paris, France) 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 (Paris) early in the century. 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 hand-painted Limoges porcelain tablewares for the most prestigious personalities such as HM Elizabeth II of England, HM Mohammed V and HM Hassan II of Morroco, or the French Republic, 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 signed by the Le Tallec's marks.

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 in 1976 by a schoolmate of his : Edgar Faure, then president of the French National Assembly.