Bernard Lorjou (1908 - 1986)

​Bernard Lorjou (1908 - 1986) "Still Life with Flowers" Oil on canvas, 25¾" x 19¾"

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​French artist, Bernard Lorjou is best known for paintings that deal with political themes, and that were often controversial, painted in a highly expressionistic manner with bold, striking colours. Born in 1908 in the Loir-et-Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France, Lorjou moved to Paris, as a teenager, where he lived in deprived circumstances in a small room on the Boulevard Raspail. After his financial situation deteriorated further, he lost his accommodation, and spent many nights sleeping in the Orsay train station. His fortunes changed, however, when he found work as a designer with the silk house of Ducharne. While working there, he designed prints for many of the major French fashion houses, including Jacques Fath, Balmain, Lanvin and Christian Dior. Some of the celebrities of the day, who wore clothing, featuring his distinctive designs, included Marlene Dietrich and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. His work as a designer was to sustain him for the next thirty years, allowing him the financial freedom to pursue his desire to be a painter.
 
In 1931, Lorjou visited Spain, for the first time. On his visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid, he discovered the expressive styles of El Greco, Velázquez and Goya, which had a major influence on his own painting. At Ducharne, he met fellow artist, Yvonne Mottet, and in 1934, they set up an art studio in Montmartre in Paris. At that time, inspired by current political events, he painted “La conquête de l'Abyssinie par les Italiens.”
 
In 1939, Lorjou returned to the town of Blois, as Germany began to invade France, later becoming mayor of the town, for a short period. As an artist, he exhibited early in his career at the Salon des Indépendants, showing there for the first time in 1942. In 1945 Lorjou had his debut solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie du Bac. That same year, he painted the “Miracle de Lourdes” (Collection of the Venice Museum) and also exhibited his paintings in numerous exhibitions, nationally and internationally. In 1946 the Galerie du Bac held an exhibition dedicated to the emerging style of “Expressionist” painting. The artists represented included Chaim Soutine, George Rouault, Edouard Joseph Goerg, James Sidney Ensor, and Lorjou. Later that year, Lorjou also exhibited his paintings at the Salon des Indépendants, before being invited to have a one man exhibition in London.
 
In 1948, alongside Bernard Buffet, Lorjou was honoured with the ‘Prix de la Critique’ award. Also, that year, he and art critic, Jean Bouret formed a group known as L’Homme Temoin, with the stated aim of defending figurative painting. This group held their first exhibition at the Galerie du Bac, and in 1949, held their second exhibition at the Galerie Claude in Paris. This exhibition attracted other artists to join the group, among them Bernard Buffet, Jean Couty, Minaux, and Simone Dat.
 
The 1950’s was a very productive period for Lorjou, where he concentrated in his painting on themes, inspired by contemporary political events. One series of paintings from this period, “L'Age Atomique”, is now owned by the French Government, and is housed in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Other paintings from this period, include “La Peste en Beauce”, which dealt with the threat of bacteriological warfare, and “Matin du Couronement”, which was a controversial tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. In 1951 Lorjou painted “La Conference”, in response to the Geneva Convention, which granted people the right of refugee status. He like many others, believed that this charter focussed more on the interests of nations, rather than on the plight of refugees. In 1953, Lorjou started exhibiting with international art dealers, George and Daniel Wildenstein, a collaboration that lasted ten years. His first solo exhibition in the United States took place the following year at the Wildenstein gallery in New York. That same year he also exhibited with his wife, Yvonne Mottet, at the Kamakura Museum in Japan.
 
Other works of Lorjou’s inspired by political events, include a makeshift structure he erected on the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris, in which he exhibited a series of paintings, protesting against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary. In 1958, he relocated this structure to the “Exposition Universelle” in Brussels, where he exhibited his large scale painting “Renart à Sakiet”, which denounced the French occupation of Algeria, and which greatly angered the French government. He continued to paint politically charged works throughout the 1960’s, often satirizing political figures such as General de Gaulle, or focusing on themes such as racism, and unjust war.
 
In 1966 Lorjou moved his summer residence to Spain and that same year he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the African room for the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, in Paris. In 1968 at the request of the United Nations, Lorjou created a poster for the fight against famine.  In the same year, he organized a moving exhibition around Paris titled “Le Camion Rouge”, in reference to the predominantly working class communist suburbs of Paris. The paintings that Lorjou presented in these exhibitions dealt with themes based on current world events and with these paintings, he sought to help viewers gain awareness of world events taking place around them.
 
In 1969 Lorjou produced a series of paintings based on the murder of Sharon Tate, and that same year his painting “The Marbella Studio” was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, Lorjou continued to exhibit internationally, with solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami. In 1985, a major retrospective exhibition of his paintings was held in the Palais de l’Europe in Menton, and that same year he held his last exhibition, on the theme of the AIDS epidemic. Bernard Lorjou died in 1986, on the last day of this exhibition. Posthumous exhibitions of his work were held in Caracas, Venezuela and Tokyo, Japan.

​Bernard Lorjou (1908 - 1986) "Still Life with Flowers" Oil on canvas, 25¾" x 19¾"

Bernard Lorjou (1908 - 1986) Vase de Fleurs, Oil on canvas, 29" x 23"

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