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