René Duvillier

Biography

René Duvillier
(1919, Oyonnax - 2002, Paris)

René Duvillier joined the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris in 1935. After five years of captivity and an exhibition at the Stalag in Krakow, he joined the « Nouvelle Ecole de Paris ». Under the guidance of the art critic Charles Estienne, it gathered painters from Surrealism and gesture or lyric abstraction that finally won the art scene in 1955. André Breton exhibited him and Benjamin Péret exalted his pictorial work, in which the brush movement brings to life natural elements, sea striking rocks and « giving them almost supernatural attributes » (1955).

Close from Degottex, Hartung, Messagier, he was however independent. And if, his gestures may have affected Breton, in which he found a form of surrealist automatism, his lyricism is much more oriented towards the Nature. An international recognition, from the Guggenheim in New York (1953) to the exposition universelle in Montreal (1967), didn't prevent him from being overwhelmed.

It is the sea in Brittany that created "a terrible choc" for him when he was invited in 1954 by Charles Estienne on the wild coast of North Finistere. "I found the movement and the gesture there. Everything was moving, the waves, the shore, the sky, the birds. I was especially struck by the spectacle of the Breton horses, manes flowing in the wind, springing out of the foam. I also found the ancient Greek myth of the birth of the sea". Consequently, he never stopped preaching, from minimal movements of waves and air, a universal lesson. From the horses of the sea in Argenton to planets, from the look to whirlpools, the world painted by René Duvillier relies the personal to the universal and the human to the cosmos. It was the man of the myth and the vertigo, between paradoxes and successive shocks, a generous, rigorous and instinctive humanist. "I am emotional and passionate, the painter said (...) I'm not looking for simplification, or a synthesis ; I am moving on all fronts, I have to keep my totality". He faced the material and his imagination fed on life. His dynamic and gestural painting associates the almost monochrome to the brightest colours.

Exhibitions selected

Solo exhibitions

2010 - Ivre de peinture, Galerie Alain Margaron, Paris
2009 - René Duvillier, Galerie L'Or du Temps, Paris
2008 - Vous êtes le feu dans l'eau, Galerie Alain Margaron, Nice
2003 - Accrochage d'oeuvres de René Duvillier, Galerie Larock-Granoff, Paris
2003 - Ici - Ailleurs, Galerie Doris Benno, Saint-Paul-De-Vence
1999 - À l'Ouest du Monde, FIAC, Paris
1993 - Le ciel de la mer, Galerie Larock-Granoff, Paris
1987 - Peintures 1955-1983, Galerie Mostini, Paris
1986 - Galerie du Manoir, La Chaux de Fonds, Suisse
1971 - Ensemble de Peinture, Palais des Expositions, Genève
1970 - Têtes Chercheuses, Galerie Le Lutrin, Lyon
1965 - Benrath et Duvillier, Galerie Argos, Nantes
1964 - Galerie Byron, New York
1961 - La Mer des Vents, Galerie Smith, Bruxelles
1943 - La Genése, Stalag de Cracovie, Kobierzyn

Groupe Exhibitions

2017 - Ailleurs est ici, École des Filles, Huelgoat
2017 - Le geste et la matière | une abstraction "autre" Paris, 1945-1965, Fondation Clément/Centre Pompidou, Martinique
2011 - L'Aventure de l'Art Abstrait, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest, Brest     
2008 - Les Nuagistes, Collégiale Saint-André, Chartres
2002 - Art ou Nature ?, Musée du Luxembourg, Luxembourg     
1999 - Actualité des collections du XXe siècle 1996-1999, musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
1999 - L'Intimité des dessins, Galerie Alain Margaron, Paris
1997 - Un combat pour l'Art Moderne, Hommage à René Déroudille., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon
1995 - Nantes et le surréalisme, Musée des beaux-arts de Nantes, Nantes
1991 - André Breton, La beauté convulsive, Centre George Pompidou, Paris
1990 - André Breton, Musée national, Madrid
1989 - I Surrealisti, Palazzo Reale, Milan
1987 - Le Visionnaire, Galerie du Manoir, La Chaux de Fonds, Suisse
1986 - Blanc/Noir/Blanc, Centre Culturel de Landerneau et Musée des Jacobins, Morlaix
1984 - Autour de Michel Ragon, Paris Art Center, Paris
1981 - Paris-Paris 1937-1957, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
1980 - Bilan de l'art contemporain, Palais des Congrès, Québec
1973 - Exposition internationale du dessin original, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Skopje, Yougoslavie
1971 - Présence Européenne, Galerie La Bussola, Turin
1968 - Peinture française contemporaine, Musées de Belgrade, Prague, Bucarest, Varsovie et Zagreb
1967 - Le Visage de l'Homme dans l'Art Contemporain, Musée Rath, Genève
1967 - Pavillon Français, Exposition Universelle de Montréal, Montréal
1967 - Dix Ans d'Art Vivant 1955-1965, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence
1966 - Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris
1965 - Art in Science, Institut d'histoire et d'art, Albany, Etats-Unis
1963 - Art contemporain, Grand Palais, Paris
1962 - 10 Malere fra Paris, Galerie Birch, Copenhague
1961 - Les 41 présentent Iris Clert, Galerie Iris Clert, Paris
1959 - L'Air et L'Eau, Galerie Saint-Augustin, Paris
1953 - Younger European Painters, The Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York