Madeleine Grenier
Biography
Madeleine Grenier
(1929, Marseille - 1982, Bourg-la-Reine)
Sensitive and lonely. Then seek the expression of an imaginary world to escape in. To find in abstraction a response to the desire for freedom and independence. In search of the impalpable, to devote oneself to the pictorial asceticism and to introduce lyrical motives to the canvas. Read Joseph Conrad. Let yourself be guided to the places where the "reality is disintegrating" only to hear the voice of the painter.
Daughter of the philosopher Jean Grenier from Saint-Brieuc, Madeleine Grenier spends her early childhood in Algiers where her father is a teacher. At the age of 19, she took her first courses in drawing and composition at the Beaux-Arts in Cairo. Back in Paris, during her figurative period, she produced large charcoal drawings, but then devoted herself entirely to painting and runs numorous collective and personal exhibitions.
From the port of Grimaud to the Simiane village, Madeleine Grenier is first inspired by the bright Mediterranean lights, which she translates into unstable, moving and colorful strokes. Then, she gradually abandons the color for the monochrome. She captures light in a rigorous composition of rhythms and materials with the evanescent whiteness. Literature and poetry of her father inspired her to move towards allusive figuration of the skies of Brittany.
The lyricism of Madeleine Grenier, the "painter of silence", inspired many artists like Jean Bazaine from the eponymous group of Lyrical Abstraction. In February 1971, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre devoted an important exhibition to Madeleine Grenier, retracing her itinerary.
Exhibitions selected
Solo exhibitions
2013 - Madeleine Grenier, Galerie Françoise Livinec, avenue Matignon, Paris
2010 - Rétrospective, Maison des Arts, Châtillon
2001/02 - Galerie Batut d'Haussy, Paris
1991 - Rétrospective, Musée-Bibliothèque Pierre-André Benoit, Alès
1991 - Toujours le même rêve, Galerie du Fleuve, Paris
1989 - Exposition de trente peintures, Galerie du Fleuve, Paris
1987 - Hommage à Madeleine Grenier, Sisteron
1985 - Galerie Bellint, Paris
1980 - Galerie Darial, Paris
1972-75/1977 - Galerie Nane Stern, Paris
1971 - Galerie Christiane Colin, Paris
1971 - Exposition Madeleine Grenier, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre
1960 - Galerie Massol, Paris
1958 - Galerie Dupont, Lille
1957 - Konstuställoning, Harnösand, Sweden
Groupe exhibitions
2017 - Ailleurs est ici, École des Filles-Espace d'art, Huelgoat
2014 - Exote - Esthétiques du divers, Ecole des filles-Espace d'art, Huelgoat
2013 - Quel temps fait-il? Ecole des filles-Espace d'art, Huelgoat
1990 - Jean Grenier : un regard sur la peinture, Musée des Jacobins, Morlaix
1970 - Galerie la Roue, Paris
1968 - Le portrait, Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris
1968 - Institut français, Barcelona
1965-68 - Galerie de Massine, Paris
1960 - Galerie de l'Ancienne Comédie, Paris
1959 - Galerie Bellechasse, Paris
1957 - Galerie Charpentier, Paris
1956 - Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris
Salons et art fairs
Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1980
Salon de Mai, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1980
Salon d'Automne, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965
Art Elysées, 2013
Art Paris, 2014, 2016
Collections
Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris
Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Morlaix
Musée du Faouët
Bibliography
J. Grenier, Quatre prières, illustrations de Madeleine Grenier, Editions Gaston Puel, 1970
J. André, F. Terret-Daniel, . Le Burgue, Madeleine Grenier, Lumières océanes, éditions Françoise Livinec, 2013
