Discover the contemporary work of Philippe Valensi

Philippe Valensi 
Born in Paris in 1952, Philippe Valensi is a doctor, dermatologist, He lives in Normandy. 
Passionate about the visual arts, he trained in sculpture in France and Italy; he learned to carve 
marble in Carrara and cast iron in India in Jaipur. Earth, stone, plaster and resin are his 
favorite materials. He leads a dual career as a doctor and a professional sculptor 
. President for several years of a medical NGO, "Dermatologie Hors"
Frontières. He has carried out numerous humanitarian missions, particularly in Rwanda, a country he
knows well, and where he initiated, in collaboration with the authorities, a public health project. He
was in Rwanda during the 10th anniversary of the genocide. The son of a survivor of the Nazi
concentration camps, he was deeply affected by this drama and his visits to places of memory, in particular Murambi and Nyamata. On his return he created the sculpture Africa, symbolizing both the suffering of the genocide, but also a woman in a proud and dignified attitude despite her bruises. The first copy of this sculpture is in an important private collection. With the writer Scholastique Mukasonga, he participated in screenings and debates on the genocide of the Tutsis, and in the national assembly at a conference on genocides he presents a work on 
the duty of disobedience, if we want the expression “Never again ” so often read in the 
registers of concentration camps or places of memory in Rwanda to have any meaning. 
• As a sculptor he organizes regular exhibitions in Boulogne sur Seine, Deauville, in
Normandy, and in Paris where he exhibits in the Gallery “La Place “ and the Kinor gallery, rue
de Rivoli. France 3 devoted, on the occasion of an exhibition of a monumental Oedipus, a
report on his work and his career
On September 5, 2020, following a commission from the city of Deauville, his double sculpture X Y (see
Photo) - an original work of two monumental bronze sculptures two meters high, was installed on the Deauville boards, on Place Reynaldo Hahn. He participates in the
casting of the works at the famous Bocquel foundry, and works closely with the construction company
to design a base and an original presentation of his two sculptures
A tribute to the book X Y by Elisabeth Badinter, but also to the film by Claude Lelouch, a man and a
woman, filmed in Deauville, this double sculpture represents an X chromosome and a
humanized Y chromosome , one as a man, the other as a woman.
XY embodies, for Philippe Valensi, a part of the Deauville genome and forever installs the mythical 
romance of the film in the city that served as its setting. X Y It is also the first stage of a journey 
of works of art that will lead from the beach to the recent Franciscaines museum, a place of life, culture 
and inspiration to Deauville. Philippe Valensi later became one of the administrators of this museum and was closely involved in the arrival of sculptures by other artists.