Raymond Guerrier (1920-2002) Farmhouse

Raymond Guerrier, using sober colors, a rough and effective drawing, a pictorial material and skilfully used impastos which give strength, power and character, gives us here a perfect testimony of the atmosphere and the harshness of the place. life of peasants in northern France in the middle of the 20th century.

The imposing work, in good condition, is signed lower left, it is offered without frame, it measures 73 cm by 92 cm.
It represents a farmhouse in the north of France, certainly made before the artist moved to the south, in Eygalières where he died.
A committed, rigorous, somewhat miserabilist and powerful work by an important artist.

Self-taught, the artist dates back to his early youth, largely made up of frequenting museums, the shaping of the austere temperament and refusal of the picturesque that would characterize him. As an artist of rigor, he states: “the great elders above all taught me the primordial importance of severe composition”.
Raymond Guerrier said he was marked by the Georges Braque exhibition, the workshops, which he visited at the Maeght gallery in 1947. At the very beginning of the 1950s, while painting, out of necessity he worked as a photoengraver. Receiving the Young Painting Prize from the Drouant-David gallery for his painting Poissons et masque in 1953, in 1954 he was a member of the jury alongside Paul Rebeyrolle, Bernard Buffet and André Minaux, three painters with whom he then met. common to position oneself, through dark works, through a harshness relating to post-war pessimism, in the wake of Francis Gruber.
It was in 1955 that he discovered Provence and, “of a solitary and taciturn character, he preferred to move away from Paris and live in Eygalières where his neighbor was Jacques Winsberg and where he became friends with the poet Provençal Charles Galtier.
The landscape that surrounds him in Eygalières, as well as his travels which allow him to see Spain, Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Morocco, Jordan, Israel, bring Raymond Guerrier, from 1970, to lighten his palette - nevertheless remaining in the "austere naked tones where ochres dominate" observes Gérald Schurr -, then to gradually slide towards abstraction, the result of "a figuration reduced to its essence, of a painting of large forms where only the essential rhythms are retained.
Pierre Basset, in his approach to a work which covers nearly seven decades, confirms what Raymond Guerrier's demanding quest was: "search for the essential, refusal of the anecdote, importance of reality and its depth, role -key to the matter”.

Personal exhibitions
Galerie Stiébel, Paris, 1952, 1954, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958.
Drouant-David Gallery, Paris, 1953.
Redfern Gallery, London, 1953, 1955
Hammer Gallery, New York, 1957
Bost Gallery, Valence (Drôme), 1957
La Calade Gallery, Avignon, 1958
Simone Badinter Gallery, Paris, 1959.
Galerie Motte, Geneva, 1958 1966.
Galerie Hervé, Paris, 1960, 1962, 1964.
Warrior Retrospective, Musée de l’Athénée, Geneva, 19624.
Jouvène Gallery, Marseille, 1964, 1967.
Galleria Arte moderno, Caracas, 1964.
Malaval Gallery, Lyon, 1966, 1972, 1977, 1980, 1983..
Thot Gallery, Avignon, 1967.
Tamara Pfeiffer Gallery, Brussels, 1967, 1975, 1977.
Galerie de Paris, Paris, March 1968, 1970, 1971
Galerie du Grand Mazel, Geneva, 1969.
Galerie du Fleuve, Bordeaux, 1970, 1978.
Le Havre Museum of Fine Arts, 1971.
One hundred and fifteen paintings by Raymond Guerrier, Museum of Art and History of Saint-Denis, March-May 1972.
Aubagne municipal cultural center, 1973.
Helias Gallery, Paris, 1973.
Galerie Ducastel, Avignon, 1973, 1974, 1976, July-August 1984 (Raymond Guerrier - Abandoning appearances without losing reality)1.
Warrior Retrospective, Cellar of the Château de Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 1974.
Town hall, Arcueil, 1974.
Salle du Spetier, Salon-de-Provence, 1976.
Palace of Arts and Culture, Brest, 1977.
Suillerot Gallery, Paris, 1977.
Chateauvallon cultural center, Toulon, 1977.
Galerie des Trois ormeaux, Aix-en-Provence, 1978.
Salle de l'Aigalier, Martigues, 1978.
Jean Houdremont Cultural Center, La Courneuve, 1979.
House of culture, Ajaccio, 1979.
Saint-Guillaume Gallery, Paris, 1979.
Olivier Theater, Istres, 1980.
Galerie L’escapade, Geneva, 1980.
Contrastes Gallery, Limoges, 1981.
French Institute of Cologne, 1981.
Town hall, La Seyne-sur-Mer, 1981.
La Salle Basse Gallery, Martigues, 1982.
Frank Ricci Gallery, Avignon, 1982.
Local action for the plastic arts of Longèves (Vendée), 1982.
Réattu Museum, Arles, 1984.
Chapel of the Grand Convent, Cavaillon, 1985, 1988.
Hélène Trintignant Gallery, Montpellier, 1986.
Flour Mill Center, Mont-de-Marsan, 1986.
Flaran Abbey, Valence-sur-Baïse, 1987.
Cloister of the Cordeliers, Tarascon, 1987.
Alpilles Museum, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 1988.
Berlioz Gallery, Sausset-les-Pins, 1989.
Carnot Gallery, Poitiers.
Orangery of the Senate, Palais du Luxembourg, Paris, 1989.
Palais Bénédictine, Fécamp, May-June 1990.
Florence Basset Gallery, Moulin de la Grande Bastide, Flassans-sur-Issole, March-April 1996, 2002
Paul Valéry Museum, Sète, July-September 1996.
Sabine Vazieux Gallery, Paris, 2007, 2009
Gallery 22, Coustellet, 2013.
Retrospective - Hundredth anniversary of the birth of Raymond Guerrier, Estrine Museum, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, September-December 2020.

Collective exhibitions
Salon of Independents, Paris, 1947, 1949, 1950, from 1953 to 1957
Salon for those under thirty, Paris, 1948
Autumn Salon, Paris, 1951-1957
Salon of the rue de Seine, Paris, 1952.
Salon de la Jeune Peinture, Paris, 1953, 1954, 1955
Salon of Sacred Art, Paris, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1958
Salon of painters witnesses of their time, Palais Galliera, Paris, 1954, 1956, 1957
School of Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1954, 1956, 1957 1960, 1961.
Portraits by thirty young painters, Galerie Visconti, Paris, June 1955.
Menton Biennale, 1955, 1957
Turin Biennale, 1955, 1957.
Face of childhood: Raymond Guerrier, François Heaulmé, Richard Bellias, Jean Commère, Jean Pollet, Philippe Cara Costea, Galerie Simone Badinier, Paris, 1956.
Comparisons Salon, Paris, 1956-1959
Biennale of young painting and young sculpture, Pavilion de Marsan, Paris, 1956-1959.
World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow, July-August 1957.
Biennial of Young Contemporary Painting, Bruges, 1958.
Salon des Tuileries, Paris, 1958, 1959
Bernard Buffet, Bernard Conte, Marcel Cramoysan, Jef Friboulet, Raymond Guerrier, Galerie Malaval, Lyon, 1964.
3rd Salon d'Angers, Raymond Guerrier and André Brasilier guests of honor, 1966.
Provence and painters today, Granet Museum, Aix-en-Provence, 1967.
One hundred Provencal artists, Cantini Museum, Marseille, 1971.
Art and the city - Festival of painting-music-mime-poetry - Constantin Andréou, Antonio Guansé, Serge Labégorre, Jacques Lagrange, Robert Lapoujade, Jean-Jacques Morvan..., church of Saint-Émilion, September 1978.
21 large paintings by Raymond Guerrier - 27 sculptures by Constantin Andréou, Orangery of the Château de Meudon, November 1995
Group exhibition: Philippe Cara Costea, Simone Dat, Raymond Guerrier, François Heaulmé, Michel Thompson, Claude Venard, Galerie Florence Basset, Flassans-sur-Issole, September-November 1996.
Paintings from the 1950s-60s - Eduardo Arroyo, Henri Déchanet, Jacques Doucet, Raymond Guerrier, Alexandre Garbell... La Capitale Galerie, November 2008 - January 2009.
Views: a century of views on the Alpilles - Auguste Chabaud, Albert Gleizes, Raymond Guerrier, André Marchand, Mario Prassinos, Maurice-Élie Sarthou, René Seyssaud, Jacques Winsberg, Estrine Museum, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, March-May 2015
Twenty years of passion: Raymond Guerrier, Roger Lersy, François Heaulmé, Bernard Lorjou, Yvonne Mottet, Bernard Buffet, André Minaux..., Florence Basset Gallery, Flassans-sur-Issole, June-August 2015.
Provence, land of meetings between artists and writers, Regards de Provence Museum, Marseille, October 2015 - March 2016.
The rebels of modern art - Paris, the 1950s, Musée Mendjisky-Écoles de Paris, Paris, October-December 2016
Young Painting - Paul Aïzpiri, Jean-Pierre Alaux, Bernard Buffet, Michel Ciry, Jean Commère, Bernard Gantner, Raymond Guerrier, Jean Jansem, André Minaux, Marcel Mouly, Michel Patrix, Paul Rebeyrolle..., Baron-Martin Museum, Gray (Haute-Saône), July-October 2017.

Awards and Recognition
Young Painting Prize 1953.
Knight of Arts and Letters 1957.

Works in public collections
In Belgium
Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels.

In France:
Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, Albi, The rabbit, oil on canvas 100x81cm
Réattu Museum, Arles.
Calais Museum of Fine Arts, Still life with horse skull, oil on canvas 97x146cm.
André-Malraux Museum of Modern Art, Le Havre.
Sacred Art Center of Lille
Cantini Museum, Marseille, The olive trees, oil on canvas 60x92cm.
Meudon Art and History Museum.
Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Ponies, oil on canvas 162x130cm, 1964.
National Museum of Modern Art, Paris.
Museum of Fine Arts of Pau, Bullfighting, oil on canvas 195x130cm
Sainte-Croix Museum, Poitiers, Croix-de-Vie beach, oil on canvas 89x116cm
National Contemporary Art Fund, Puteaux, including deposits
Place Lucien Herr, oil on canvas 89x116cm, French Embassy in the United Kingdom, London.
Landscape, oil on canvas 73x92cm, National Assembly, Paris.
The circus, oil on canvas, 130x162cm, sub-prefecture of Saint-Jean-d'Angély.
Denys-Puech Museum, Rodez, Still life with duck, oil on canvas, 1960
Saint-Denis Museum of Art and History.
Sacred Art Center of Lille.
French Embassy in London.

Luxembourg
National Museum of History and Art, Luxembourg.
Swiss
Pully Art Museum (Switzerland)
UNITED STATES
St. Louis Art Museum (Missouri)
Japan
Tokyo Museum of Modern Art.
Venezuela
Caracas Museum of Fine Arts.