French · Contemporary figurative sculpture
Yves Pirès
b. 1958, Paris
Yves Pirès (born 1958) is a French sculptor of expressive figurative bronzes who came to sculpture after careers in decoration and set design. His Le Baiser Nacré (The Mother-of-Pearl Kiss) is often searched as 'The Kiss.'
1 work in the collection
Works by Yves Pirès
Yves Pirès is a French sculptor, born in Paris in 1958 according to his dealers, who makes expressive figurative sculpture in bronze and resin. He is best known online for Le Baiser Nacré (The Mother-of-Pearl Kiss), a pearl-white bust of two lovers locked in a kiss, which is widely shared simply as "The Kiss" by Yves Pires.
Life
Pirès became interested in art at 16 and tried many techniques: drawing, engraving, screen printing, sculpture and casting. After leaving school at 19 he worked for about a dozen years with his father in the building trade, experience that led him into set decoration for film and television. He worked on French television series of the late 1980s and 1990s and on a TV adaptation of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and designed stage sets for a show by the singer Sylvie Vartan. His dealers say he also worked in painting, illustration and publishing, and that he turned to sculpture full time after a decisive encounter with the work of Rodin.
Style
Pirès's sculptures are figurative and dynamic: bodies in flight, leaping, waking, embracing. Works offered by his galleries include Aurore (2016), Le Saut (The Leap, 2016), Amanita (2017) and L'Éveil (The Awakening, 2023), mostly bronzes in small numbered editions. The surfaces often keep the marks of modeling, and the figures can be fragmentary, a torso or a pair of heads emerging from a rough mass. That approach owes much to Auguste Rodin, whose own The Kiss is the obvious ancestor of Pirès's best-known work.
Le Baiser Nacré: "The Kiss"
Le Baiser Nacré shows two heads pressed together in a kiss, the faces partly merged, cast in pearlescent resin and mounted on a clear acrylic base. At about 31 cm high it is a small work, and the mother-of-pearl sheen that gives it its title makes the lovers look almost liquid. Its date and edition size are not confirmed in public records.
The subject places Pirès in a long line of sculptors of the kiss, from Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss to Rodin and Brancusi. See also our guide to famous sculptures.
Where to see his work
Pirès's sculptures are sold through galleries and online platforms such as Artsper. We know of no museum holdings.
Questions & answers
Who made The Kiss sculpture by Yves Pires?
The sculpture often shared as 'The Kiss' by Yves Pires is Le Baiser Nacré (The Mother-of-Pearl Kiss), a small pearlescent bust of two lovers kissing by the French sculptor Yves Pirès, mounted on a clear acrylic base.
Who is Yves Pirès?
Yves Pirès is a French sculptor, born in Paris in 1958 according to his dealers. After working in the building trade and as a set decorator for film and television, he turned to sculpture, inspired by Rodin.
What materials does Yves Pirès use?
He works mainly in bronze, usually in small numbered editions, and also in resin, as in Le Baiser Nacré, whose pearlescent finish gives the work its title.