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1940 to the present day
Michel de Gallard
was born in the Allier region in 1921. As a young man, he started to study
medicine but these studies were interrupted by the war. He therefore decided
to go to Paris where he joined the Académie de la Grande Chaumière as well
as the Arts Décoratifs. He set up house in La Ruche, a prestigious bohemian
area, and nursery ground of the historic Ecole de Paris where artists such
as Chagall, Soutine, Léger and many others once lived.
He explored the museums and during a visit
to his uncle, an Ambassador in Belgium, he discovered Flemish painting and
in particular, a passion for the works of Brueghel, who emphasised the earthy
origins of the great artist and who would greatly influence his work.
After
the war, a sordidly realistic movement ("the misérabilisme”) was created.
After Gruber, Michel de Gallard became one of the most outstanding painters
of this group. In 1948, with Buffet and Rebeyrolle, he participated in the
Homme Témoin display, launched by Lorjou as a reaction against abstractive
art.
In 1950, along with Bernard Buffet, he was one of the founding members
of the Salon de la Jeune Peinture which took over from the Salon des Moins
de 30 ans, and which made famous this new form of realism marked by a particular
sense of detail and expression (important exhibitions of this group were
held at the Galerie Charpentier , the gallery located Faubourg Saint-Honoré
that was representative of the Ecole de Paris).
In 1955, he married Claude Autenheimer and moved for the last time to the
Yonne where he is surrounded by nature.
An
important detail which makes it easier to understand some aspects of his
painting is that Michel de Gallard wanted to be an architect. From labourers
cottages to large cathedrals, every manmade structure fascinated him. We
cannot forget his love for Paris and for Utrillo, a painter of urban poetry
with his typical façades.
Themes from houses, roofs and walls are major elements of his painting.
Also present are other vertical structures such as trees - isolated or grouped
together, but always leafless, reduced to form a graphic skeleton with stains
of red showing in the black branches, or telegraph poles, nervously sketched,
very graphic and very personal.
The artist was fascinated by the stained glass windows of the cathedral in Bourges, in particular by the lead that held them together and the contrast it formed with the sea of colours all around. This is an effect that the intertwining branches, always present in his countryside paintings, as well as the pots, tubes and forests of bushes of his still life and studio views work try to recreate.
A few words on his work, his technique matured slowly, is well though out, mastered, well studied, sensual. His painting is clear, solid and intelligent. He is an unusual painter.
His painting reflects man,
discreet, constant, with a love for earth and stone, uninfluenced by tourist
type painting or even more so by provocation... a true man.
He joined the great French tradition. Jean Dalevéze in Nouvelles Littéraires
talks of « un bonheur qui s’installe dans la durée ».
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