Jean Le Moal, was one of the principal exponents of French non-figuration of the second half of the 20th century. The artist divided his life between Paris, Haute-Ardèche and Brittany, where he discovered the landscapes that led him gradually to non-figuration, with works in which vibrant colours and light are united and vibrating.
After studying interior architecture at the end of the 1920s in Lyon, he settled in Paris and copied the Old and Modern Masters - Rembrandt, Vélasquez, Chardin, Bonnard, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse ... In 1935, Le Moal joined the fresco workshop at the Ranson Academy, which oriented his taste for monumental décor and soon the art of stained glass. He participated in the Lyon group Témoignage, and passed over Cubism and Surrealism experiences before the war. These decisive years of formation lead him, after 1945, to a form of abstraction at peace with figurative representation.
In a historical journey, this major exhibition offers for the first time a complete and unprecedented panorama of the work of Jean Le Moal, also revealing the artist’s interest in photography.
Philippe Bouchet, curator of the exhibition, is an art historian, author of articles, prefaces and essays on 20th and 21st century art. He has contributed to numerous catalogues and published several books on Édouard Pignon (1905-1993) as well as on Charles Lapicque (1898-1988), to which he devoted his recent research. He has been the curator of several exhibitions on these two artists.
This exhibition "Jean Le Moal (1909-2007)" is co-organized with the Valence Museum of Art and Archeology and the Musée de l'Hospice Saint-Roch d ' Issoudun (9 February to 13 May), and will continue to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Quimper (15 June – 17 September).