Horace Diaz, l'Arche de Noë / Noah's Arc

this picture and the next three 

from the TECFA webpage 

I am not quite sure if Horace Diaz' art environment really answered to the name of Noah's Arc, but if not, such a name anyhow would have been a good description of what Diaz  created and exposed on a terrain he owned south of the community Lodève, in the Herault-area in France.

Life and works

Horace Diaz (1929-2013) was born in Malaga, Spain. In 1938 the family moved to France, fleeing the regime in Spain. Grown up, Diaz had a training as a mason and succeeded in making a career in all kinds of construction works.

One day when he had built a house for a client, he was asked if he also could create a garden around that house, garden ornaments included. Diaz decided to give it a try. He successfully created some ornaments and, his interest in sculpting aroused, this became kind of a passion.

Beginning in 1966, through the years Diaz has made a variety of sculptures mainly depicting animals, some of which were rather large-sized.

For some thirty years Horace Diaz has been active in making sculptures.

Although the site at Lodève's industrial area had a (mosaic decorated) pied à terre, Diaz didn't live there. He had an apartment in the center of Lodève with a balcony decorated with some sculptures of animals ¹.

Exposition

Horace Diaz was a respected sculptor. He was a guest of honor in an open air summer exposition in the community of Salasc in southern France (summer 2009). The exposition showed one of Diaz' well known creations, the giraffe.

The site doesn't exist anymore

Horace Diaz passed away in March 2013. Following his death the site at the industrial area was cleaned up. The sculptures have been scattered across various private collections.

this picture and the next one 
from the museum's Facebook page

One of the sculptures, a large crocodile, in 2015 has been added to the garden of the Art Brut Musée in Montpellier in southern France, opened for the public April 9th 2016.

The crocodile also appears in the new museum's first affiche.

Documentation

* Website Habitants-paysagistes (Lille art museum) with photos by Francis David
* Illustrated article (June 2011) in the weblog of Jean-Michel Chesné

* In her website Les grigris de Sophie Sophie Lepetit has published a large number of pictures of Diaz' creations: November 2012, June 2013 and August 2013
* The same goes for the website l'Herault insolite (March 2012)

Note
¹ as reported by Bruno Montpied, Le gazouillis des éléphants, 2017, p. 386

first published July 2009, last revised November 2017

Horace Diaz
l'Arche de Noë
Zone Industriel
34700 Lodève, dept Herault, region Occitanie, France
site doesn't exist anymore