Jean-Pierre Jouffroy was a painter, a printmaker, a sculptor and, above all, a passionate defender of painting and painters, and an insightful art historian. He was born in Paris in 1933 and died in Arcueil in 2018. His painting is distinguished by a typical post-World War II identity. From the early 1970s, the painter set off in a new direction. Using pure, vivid colors, he began to paint almost abstract compositions, striped with fluid, supple lines. Through his artworks, he explored a new way of expressing his feelings, one that was remarkably frank and optimistic.

These years were marked by the end of the Glorious Thirty, the post-war boom, the advent of new means of communication, the first oil crisis and the beginning of an ecological conscience. Because he was an activist, his work blended awareness and political advances, and we witnessed an eclectic artistic universe, with aesthetic dichotomies reflecting the society of the 1970s. Jean-Pierre Jouffroy has always refused to be bound by convention; an art and politics lover, he has never abandoned subject for form.

The exhibition in the tight space of The Petite Gallery in Monségur is a first recall, without timelines markers and without retracing the artist’s career. It’s a succinct, dense presentation, intended as a tribute and a fine opportunity to make a few of his manifest canvases visible once again. It’s easy to see why we’re so keen to defend his memory. In his experimental approach, drawing plays a key role, as does the desire to explore the rich territory that is painting. In his luminous canvases, Jean-Pierre Jouffroy deliberately overturns the distinction between abstraction and figuration, in a passionate pursuit of densely packed, ever more concise art. Through a selection of works, this exhibition will provide an insight into a pictorial quest of rare intensity.

‹ ›