Yvette Gastauer-Claire

Biography

In 1987 Luxembourg marked the millennium of Saint Michael's Church, and a series of commemorative medals for the occasion was commissioned from the Caisse d'Épargne de l'État, the state savings bank. The medallist who made them was Yvette Gastauer-Claire, then still young. The bank would commission her again more than once.

She was born on 29 May 1957 in Esch-sur-Alzette. From 1974 to 1979 she studied art at the École des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg, the city's school of arts and crafts, and then served an apprenticeship under the sculptor Camille Nocher. From 1980 to 1984 she worked as a restorer for Luxembourg's national museums. Later she carried out restoration work on Luxembourg monuments, working in a private modelling studio. At the same time she gave sculpture courses for adults and taught weak-sighted children at the Institut pour Déficients Visuels. She lives and works in Schifflange, where she has her own studio. Since 1985 she has exhibited with FIDEM, the International Art Medal Federation, and she has taken part in group exhibitions in Luxembourg, Germany, France and Belgium. Her first solo exhibition was held in Dudelange in 1995.

As for coins, her numismatic work begins with two silver coins of 500 Luxembourgish francs: one for 1995, when Luxembourg was a European Capital of Culture, and one for the swearing-in of Grand Duke Henri in 2000. Her best-known designs are the three different images on Luxembourg's euro coins bearing the portrait of Grand Duke Henri; they cover all denominations from 1 cent to 2 euros. She also designed several Luxembourg commemorative euro coins. These works are described in her “Livret d'artiste autour de l'Euro”. Since 2001 she has issued a bronze art medal every year in the series “L'art dans la main” (“Art in the Hand”). I think this series shows well how she works: a small format, but a different task each year.

She has made sculptures for public spaces since the early 1990s. The fountain “Wou dat roud Gold gegruewe gouf” (“Where the Red Gold Was Dug”) in Dudelange dates from 1992. In 2002 “Feierstëppeler” (“The Smelters”) appeared in front of the building of the Central Bank of Luxembourg. The memorial “Porte d'Italie” in Dudelange, dedicated to Italian immigrants, was made in 2007. For the church in Mondercange she made a sculpture of Saint Willibrord (2009).

In 2011 memorial plaques appeared for the racing cyclists Elsy Jacobs and Charly Gaul: two for each, in their home communes and in the city park of Luxembourg. In 2018 she made, in Belval, a memorial to the 2017 world cyclo-cross championships, in steel and bronze. Her other works include “Die Reisende” (“The Traveller”) in Holzbüttgen (2013), the bronze group “The Winegrower at Work” in Ehnen (2014), and the aluminium sculpture “De Mënsch” (“The Human Being”) in Steinfort (2016).

In 2022 she made “La Vie en commun” (“Life in Common”) in bronze, with cast-iron imprints from the project “Footprint”.