Raymond Guerrier, Still Life With Pheasants, Oil On Canvas

Raymond Guerrier (1920-2002)
Still life with pheasant, circa 1955
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
100 x 78 cm

Self-taught, Raymond Guerrier became interested in art as a teenager, frequenting museums and training himself through the works of great masters. He made his debut at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants in 1947. He won a prize at a group exhibition in 1952, then exhibited personally at the Stiébel gallery. The following year, he won the Prix de la Jeune Peinture at the Drouant-David gallery, allowing him to abandon the photoengraver profession that provided him with a living, to devote himself entirely to painting. What would characterize his painting is, according to Lydia Harambourg: "vigor of line, monumental, even immutable solidity, the delicate modulations of a reduced palette where shadow and light play. » He participated in numerous group exhibitions: Turin Biennale in 1955, Menton Biennale in 1957, First Paris Biennale, French Art in Japan from 1957 to 1959, Comparisons from 1958 to 1965 and systematically at the Peintres Témoins de leur Temps. His move to Eygalières in 1955 and his interest in sacred art contributed to renewing his painting, which became more luminous. Guerrier voluntarily broke with the Parisian milieu and gradually moved away from the Salons. His travels to Spain, Sardinia, Greece, Morocco, Jordan and Israel brought yellows, oranges and blues to his palette. He exhibited his landscapes of Eygalières and the Alpilles at the Hervé gallery in 1960, then works on the theme of the circus in 1964. His works are kept at the Musée d'art moderne in Paris, in Poitiers, Marseille, Pau, Calais, Le Havre and London.