In sheer joy and lightness, Joy de Rohan Chabot lives up to her name, drawing inspiration from nature for the past sixty years. A natural choice for someone who grew up in the countryside. After a glamorous life in Paris, where in the 1970s and 80s she was a prominent figure alongside her husband Jean de Rohan Chabot, she rediscovered the tranquility of rural life in Auvergne at their chateau in Jozerand. There, the artist, who was trained at the School of Decorative Arts, continuously observes the changing seasons, trees, flowers, and animals… From this fascination with life, she has imaginatively created painted screens and flower-shaped chairs, exploring various mediums such as glass, metal, and bronze. She has painted dozens of tableware sets for Dior Maison – an ongoing collaboration – and has decorated the nightclubs of Regine…
Today, the artist, represented since 2019 by the prestigious Chastel Maréchal gallery, is releasing her first monograph and unveiling in two exhibitions stools, chairs, and mirrors where nature and poetry intertwine.
ELLE Décoration. Finally a book that tells your sixty years of creation!
Joy de Rohan Chabot. Yes, up until now I hadn’t thought about it. I knew how much I had worked, but I realized that my children, and especially my grandchildren, only had a vague idea. This book is for them, it retraces this long creative journey, nourished by nature. Sometimes it happened to coincide with the current fashion, sometimes not, and that’s fine because an artist must first and foremost express their uniqueness. For a while now, my universe focused on fauna and flora is in vogue. It amuses me to remember that at the beginning, when I incorporated insects into my pieces, there were screams of horror, whereas today, they are requested!
It’s your third exhibition at the Chastel-Maréchal gallery. Has this collaboration that started in 2019 changed something in your creations?
J. de R. C. I was waiting for this encounter! Aline Chastel-Maréchal is a very supportive presence. She has a level of excellence that forces me to strive for perfection. In order for my work to correspond to the universe of her gallery and to the artists she has been defending for a long time – Line Vautrin, Jean-Charles Moreux, Serge Roche, Alberto Giacometti… – she made me focus on bronze, reducing my use of color, whereas I tended to paint my pieces. I also experimented with a new technique, that of burnt wood, which allows me to create bronze branches whose appearance is closest to reality, reproducing the roughness of the bark, the moss, the lichen… Let’s say that today I work in a form of purity and I’ve let go of the blah blah.
“The Hanging Tree”, 2024
Like a luminous sculpture, this chandelier unfolds its vegetal branches made of bronze using the burnt wood technique. A complex know-how that reveals lichen and buds (h. 100xl. 83 cm).
“The Impenetrable Garden”, 2025
A triptych of bronze and metal mirrors, with delicately adorned frames of birds, branches, and intertwined flowers. Swallows seem to fly above the mirror like a reflective still water (h. 196xl.96.5 cm; central mirror: h. 198 xl. 124 cm).
Do you like doing everything yourself?
J. de R. C. Yes, I can’t imagine reproducing the same thing twice. Recently, for a dining room of a Hong Kong collector, I painted thirty-nine panels depicting a forest with orchids. By the thirty-eighth, I was getting a little tired. It took me a whole year! When Delphine Arnault [CEO of Christian Dior Couture, ed.] asked me to paint the seven hundred plates for her wedding – I had three months to do it – each one was slightly different. I must say I love challenges and also being overwhelmed with work. Often I wonder: how am I going to do it? I won’t make it, and then, in the end, I do.
What is your latest challenge?
J. de R. C. Right now, I’m working on a bronze chaise longue topped with tree branches that will be presented at the PAD Paris fair in April. It’s a real challenge: you have to think about the weight of the branches, their right height… The idea came to me when I saw a leaning tree in Jozerand. That’s how it is: I take note of the things I see and they come out in one way or another in my creations. Actually, when I run out of ideas, I go for a walk!
How did you reconcile your Parisian life, where you and your husband Jean were a prominent couple, with your life as an artist?
J. de R. C. It was in the 70s/80s, we were young, invited everywhere and all the time to parties and extravagant trips. But I wanted to escape from that world that didn’t amuse me much and where I was constantly asked why I had paint on my hands! The only person who amused me was my husband, and as he loved this high life so much… I would go to bed late and come back from those evenings with the apprehension of having less time for my work the next day. Fortunately, I was lucky to have a lot of energy – probably inherited from my Scottish mother – and nothing ever veered me off my path. I always found a way to continue, to work in a corner or in the studio I had at that time in Paris. I had a double life but creation has always been a reason to live, a sanctuary.
In this life, you also met Régine and decorated her nightclubs…
J. de R. C. Régine contacted me after seeing my lacquer work. I had just returned from China where I had spent three months learning this skill. The press had echoed some of my creations at that time, which is why Régine asked me to paint her nightclubs all over the world. We went together to New York, Sao Paulo, Santiago… I painted immense birds of paradise for the Sao Paulo establishment, for another, chandeliers. The collaboration lasted for ten years, and not only were we greatly amused but we also became very good friends.
“The May Stroll”, 2023
On this four-leaf bronze screen deploying a lattice of metal embossed flowers and leaves with a golden patina, the artist has integrated black metal bird silhouettes and two gilded butterflies taking flight. Pure poetry (h. 190xl. 240 cm).
“Small Silver Bushes”, 2022
Comprising several levels of leaves, this low bronze table with a golden patina rests on a base of undulating rods. Lightness made graceful (1,111 xp. 82 xh. 42 cm).
Discover Joy de Rohan Chabot’s work
- From April 8 to 12, exhibitions presented by the Chastel-Maréchal gallery at the PAD fair (Jardin des Tuileries, booth 8)
- The Private Apartment (212, Rue de Rivoli, Paris – 1st; open to the public during the PAD from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., then by appointment until April 30).
- chastel-marechal.com
Read also
“Joy de Rohan Chabot. From reality to dream” by Eric Jansen at the Gourcuff Gradenigo Editions.
