Bernadette Bour

Biography

Bernadette Bour
(born in 1939, in Nancy)

A graduate of art history and philosophy, Bernadette Bour obtained her National Diploma of Fine Arts in 1970 and became one of the few French abstract artists in the 1970s. She was a professor at the University of Strasbourg and the School of Fine Arts of Lorient.

Bour?s works entirely indicate her willingness to make painting materials sublime in a long-term process of perforation, cutting, spreading of the color. In her artistic universe, a twofold movement is observed among a compact gravity, monochrome and bright lightness made of signs and symbols.

By tearing, layering and perforating, Bernadette Bour has created a new abstract path with her monumental paintings. Ploughing canvas with pigment and other materials, the artist suggests a form of brutality referring to a great poetry.  

Unique and Strong, her works have been systematically presented in historical international avant-garde scene throughout the 1970s and 80s in range with Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Martin Barré, Daniel Dezeuze, Per Kirkeby, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, and others. They are also integrated into the collection of the Modern Art Museum of Strasbourg and Centre Pompidou.

Exhibitions selected

Solo Exhibitions (selection)

2000 - Le sourire de la Victoire de Samothrace, Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf

1985 - Bernadette Bour, Maison de la Culture, Saint-Etienne

1983 - Malerei, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin

1979 - Bernadette Bour, Internationaal Culturel Centrum, Anvers

1976 - Peintures, CAPC - Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux

1976 - Bernadette Bour, Musée d'Art Moderne, Strasbourg

1974 - Bernadette Bour, Galerie Germain, Paris

 

Group Exhibitions (selection)

2009 - Elles@Centrepompidou, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris

1983 - Armando, Bernadette Bour, Joan Jonas, Per Kirkeby, Künstlerwerkstätten, Munich

1981 - Nature du dessin, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris

1979 - L'éternel conflit du dessin et de la couleur : Hommage à Matisse, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris

1977 - Surfaces libres : Unstreched surfaces, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

1976 - Du point à la ligne, MNAM-Centre Pompidou, Paris

 

Collection (selection)

Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris

Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris

Musée d'Art Moderne, Strasbourg

FRAC : Lorraine, Auvergne,

 

Bibliography (séelection)

Aspects de la peinture en France, B. Bour, Alfred Pacquement, 1977
Bernadette Bour, Jean-Louis Schefer, ICC Anvers, 1979
Bernadette Bour, Eric Michaud, Maison de la Culture Saint Etienne, 1986
Bernadette Bour, une salle pour le sourire de la Victoire de Samothrace, Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, 2000
L'art contemporain en France, Catherine Millet, Flammarion 1985 et 2015
Bernadette Bour, dans Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices, Antoinette Fouque et coll., Des femmes, 2015