Laurent Davidson was born in New York City, then moved with his family in 1953 at the age of 4 to the Loire Valley in France. There he lived and was educated for the next twenty years. The grandson of internationally distinguished portrait sculptor Jo Davidson, Laurent attended the Beaux Arts school in Tours, France prior to working in lithography printing and art conservation and restoration.

He first experimented with “Mobiles” at the age of thirteen when living in Saché, France next door to Alexander Calder, the world renowned artist who developed and popularized the unique art of Mobile making. Calder’s daughter married Laurent’s uncle and they all lived in the same village of Saché.

It was the study of music and chromatic harmony that initiated a renewed interest in Mobile making. Made of elemental shapes composed in rhythms and colors, set on a point or suspended in the air, Mobiles can be considered to be part of the wind instrument family. Exploring their similarity to musical scales or phrases, Laurent aspires to convey the relationship between the visual arts and music. Mobiles floating in space and time can be interpreted as “harmonic progressions” and their movement as “variations.”

Working with aluminum and steel, Laurent creates Mobiles and StabiloMobiles for interiors as well as for outdoors. Each sculpture is painted with Japan Colors, an oil base paint that dries to a flat finish so that the colors are visible from all angles. His large outdoor installations are made of heavy gauge metals and painted with durable weather-resistant paints.

Laurent has shown his paintings and sculptures at one man and group shows in Carmel, Big Sur and Laguna Beach, California, Scottsdale, Arizona, Seattle, Washington, Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the International Art Fair in Paris (FIAC) and at his family’s gallery in Tours, France.

Laurent lives in Carmel, California on the beautiful Monterey Peninsula. He lives there with his wife Diana, the long-time owner of the Highlands Sculpture Gallery in Carmel.