Abstract Composition By Jacques Le Chevallier

Beautiful work on greaseproof paper by Jacques Le Chevallier. The work is signed lower right. Dimensions without frame: 30/22 cm Dimensions with frame: 51/41 cm Jacques Le Chevallier was born in Paris on July 26, 1896. From 1911 to 1915 he attended the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. Shortly after his demobilization, in 1920, he was called by Louis Barillet and participated in the creation of his stained glass workshop. A long collaboration was established until 1945 in which Théo Hanssen took part During these years. Jacques Le Chevallier will continue to pursue numerous personal research: painting, tapestry, wood engraving, imagery, lighting. Member of the Society of Decorative Artists and member of the Salon d'Automne, since 1925, founding member of the UAM Since 1928 he has participated. frequently by sending paintings and watercolors to the Salons d'Automne, Indépendants, of water painting (Purchases by the City of Paris). He made tapestries executed in Aubusson, the first of which were exhibited at the Petit-Palais. Since 1945, Jacques Le Chevallier has set up his own stained glass workshop in Fontenay-aux-Roses. He has created a significant number of stained glass windows commissioned for France by the Direction of Architecture, the Clergy or the Reconstruction Cooperatives. Churches of Doullens, La Roche-Posay, Condé-sur-Noireau, Saint-Hilaire du Harcouët, Bourg-en-Bresse, etc. Cathedrals of Besançon, Toulouse, Angers (entire restoration and modern stained glass windows). Cultural Relations entrusted him with the choir of Notre-Dame de Trèves. Let us also mention the large stained glass windows of Echternach and various churches or chapels in Switzerland and Belgium. In 1948, he organized the Sacred Art Center with Maurice Rocher. Since 1952, he has been in charge of a stained glass course at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Three aspects of Jacques Le Chevallier's personality and activities stand out: the theoretician, the artist with multiple researches and the Master Glassmaker. Jacques Le Chevallier is convinced that art does not have its rightful place in modern society. Through articles, conferences and his teaching, he strives to combat this deficiency. Recalling that the role of the old craft, source and vehicle of artistic activity, absolutely no longer corresponds to the economic demands of our time, he affirms that only an artist rich in profound training will go beyond the stage of routine skills and that the great artistic professions can only be renewed by widely developed talents. A passionate researcher, we will point out, among other things, his audacious creations of lighting fixtures around 1930 executed with R. Koechlin. (Album de Jean Prouvé, Le Métal, Ed. J. Moreau). The work of the master glassmaker also appears inseparable from the name of Jacques Le Chevallier. A painter, he believes that stained glass is the ideal point of insertion between "sensitive" painting and monumental art. Le Chevallier makes his own models and paints on the glass he has chosen with all the freedom that this technique allows (the technical realization, cutting and setting, is ensured by specialists). Concerned with the symbolic and expressive value of the themes proposed to him, he strives to give each stained glass window the value of a true creation and as such plays a leading role in the current evolution of sacred art. He also created abstract stained glass windows and was convinced that modern architecture would often benefit from being brought to life by the living contribution of a luminous and colored surface. SOURCES: MOBILIER ET DECORATION N° 5 JUNE 1954