Pierre GIRIEUD ( 1876 - 1948)
Les Baigneurs Oil on panel Signed lower left 1928 H 40 L 50 c
Biography :
Pierre Girieud was born at No. 14 rue de Marseille in Paris He was an important figure but little known of the artistic scene during the first half of the twentieth century and Montmartre
The vocation of Pierre Girieud appears very early and, refusing the scientific training that his father wants to force him to follow, he devotes himself to painting. His training is of a self - taught nature and results primarily from visits to museums, first local and then Parisian, visits during which he studies the techniques of those who preceded him The diary of Eugène Delacroix has a great influence on his vision of the painting Admirator initially painters Paul Guigou and Monticelli , it integrates the excitement Montmartre thanks to Jules Monge and Edmond Lempereur He discovers in turn the works of Paul Gauguin through Durio and then the Italian primitives during artistic stays in Venice and Tuscany
He draws up the statutes of Salon des refusés in 1901 under the name "Bilange" with the complicity of Fabien Launay , who will become the Salon d'automne
He participates in the College of Modern Aesthetics , a collective of creators - via La Revue Naturiste - in the fall of 1900, with artists such as Émile Dezaunay , Durio , Girieud, Henri Delepouve, Charles Huard , Manolo Hugue , Frantz Jourdain , Fabien Launay , Alphée E Iker, Maillol, Raoul de Mathan , Charles Milcendeau , Tony Minartz , Ricardo Flores
He joined the New Trends Group in 1903 where he met Vassili Kandinsky
The " Villa Medici Free ", founded in 1909 at Orgeville Castle by the judge. wikipediaorg / wiki / Jean_Metzinger "> Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes , Georges Duhamel and Girieud then accept Raoul Dufy , Andre Lhote , André Marchand
Girieud is the first French to adhere to the principles of the New Association of Munich Artists (NKVM) when it was founded in Munich in 1909. He then serves as a link between Parisian and German artists and contributes to catalogs and exhibitions Girieud becomes their main French representative and helps the leading members to collect the works of his French colleagues; He will be present at the three exhibitions of the NKVM in 1909, 1910 and 1911. When Kandinsky leaves the NKVM, he maintains good contacts with Girieud who is the link between the Blaue Reiter (the blue rider) and Paris Kandinsky orders Girieud an article on the Sienese primitives and images of Epinal to constitute the Almanach Girieud succeeds the tour de force to remain faithful to the two antagonistic clans: it contributes to the Almanac but does not expose with the Blaue Reiter, continuing to hang its canvases in adjacent rooms reserved for the NKVM
There is, however, a current to which Girieud refuses to adhere, it is cubism It is in this perspective, that he participates in 1910 to the hoax of Boronali by which, a painting painted by the tail of a donkey before usher , and entitled And the sun fell asleep on the Adriatic , signed Joachim Raphael Boronali is placed in the Salon des Independants Berthe Weill exposes his paintings from 1901, Clovis Sagot from 1903 Kahnweiller devotes a special exhibition in 1907
From 1910, Girieud is present in all the national and international exhibitions: Independents of Prague, London exhibition "Manet and the Post-Impressionists", Neue Secession of 1911, the first two exhibitions of the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin, the exhibition of French Art in Budapest, the second Post Impressionist Exhibition in London, the Hans Goltz Gallery in Germany as part of the Neue Kunst, at the Armory Show in New York, Boston and Chicago, at the Sonderbund in Cologne, at the Exhibition of French Art in Stockholm, at the exhibition of papers of Mon, at the Venice Biennale Grand admirer of Paul Gauguin whose works he was able to see in 1901, thanks to his friend Durrio, ceramist and silversmith who worked with the artist, Girieud paints according to the precepts nabis He paints in broad flat areas, circles of black the stylized forms to bring out the quintessence He does not copy the existing but translates a feeling in front of the model, thanks to the game of composition and colors He uses whole tones and does not hesitate to use unnatural colors to increase the decorative effect by making a harmonic. wikipediaorg / wiki / C% C3% A8ne "> Supper in which Gauguin shares a meal with his disciples (a sketch is in the Atchull Collection and the composition is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Pont-Aven ) Girieud likes the color He in study the impact by creating variations on the same subject treated in different tones or by creating series intended to be juxtaposed
He showed at the Salon des Independants of 1905 one of his masterpieces, The Temptation of St. Anthony , whose colors were scandalous; this painting is part of the collections held at the Cantini Museum in Marseille
He exhibited five paintings in room n ° VII of the Salon d'Automne of 1905 , described as "cage with wild animals " An article of Louis Vauxcelles in the Gil Blas of October 17, 1905 quotes him from the seven painters present in what the Critique considers as cernant "by their orgy of pure tones" the classic work of the sculptor Albert Marque
He was always considered tawny by the critics of the time, marked by the violence of his colors Girieud, adept of the primitive and the fauvism, feeds vigorous oppositions inherent to his native Provence, is also invested in the expressionist painting to the excessive contrasts, unusual color relationships dominated by the abundance of black, simplifications of increasingly acute forms
In addition, Girieud fully endorses the philosophy that led to the creation of the Blaue Reiter for which art has no boundaries, neither between states, nor between disciplines He has already fought in 1901 for this new perspective of art to which painters, writers and musicians must contribute
From 1912, strongly united to Provencal intellectuals whose leader is Joachim Gasquet , Girieud has the revelation, in their contact, of the beauty of classical compositions He holds an additional source of inspiration Plenitude of forms and colors become his new rules of composition, synthesizing classical concepts and its perception of the world in the light of the Mediterranean world
Girieud will try with the painter Alfred Lombard to create in Marseille a salon, the Salon de Mai This initiative will come to expose in this City in 1910 and 1913 number of painters Montmartre The exhibition, on the model of Blaue Reiter will try to involve all Arts
If Girieud was interested in different forms of art: paintings, drawings, engravings, illustrations, ceramics, jewelry, he was particularly interested in the decoration through large formats Following his stays in Italy the fresco will become one of his specialties that he will go to teach at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo
In 1929, he was named knight of the Legion of Honor under the patronage of the painter Georges Dufrénoy. wikipediaorg / wiki / Universit% C3% A9_de_Poitiers "> University of Poitiers The twelve panels will be on display at the Musée de l'Orangerie before being put on site
His works are present in twenty-two museums, including the St. Petersburg Hermitage , the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris , the Lenbachhaus in Munich , the Petit Palais Museum in Geneva , and the Annonciade Museum in Saint-Tropez. , the Cantini Museum of Marseille
Girieud who was alternately Symbolist , Fauve, Expressionist before returning to a certain classicism, remains an unclassifiable artist strongly influenced by certain currents, he does not really fit into any of them bringing to all his personal touch His solitary course was always difficult, sometimes misunderstood
Louis Vauxcelles reports in the Excelsior newspaper of May 29, 1919: "While Flandrin , Marquet , Dufrenoy , Puy , Laprade , Manguin , Friesz became famous, Matisse illustrious, Pierre Girieud, their comrade, their equal, remains isolated It was not fair for Girieud, and here I am my criticism mea culpa Except Gasquet and Charles Morice who understood this artist, no one went to seek him in his retirement We were too seduced by the delights of Bonnard , and the fireworks of the Fauves we were surprised Near them, but in silence, a cultured, meditative, loving Sienese and Gauguin, aimed not at the effect, but at the rate, preferred the composition ordered to the piece of bravery It was Girieud
