André Brasilier. Paintings, ceramics, tapestries.

On 6 September 2005 an exhibition opened in the General Staff building devoted to works by André Brasilier. This is the first presentation of the master's works in Russia. The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage together with the Galerie de Bussy in Paris. More than 100 exhibits are displayed in the halls of the General Staff, and they complement splendidly the museum's own collection of 19th and early 20th century French art.

André Brasilier was born in 1929 and has become one of the most widely known artists in present-day France. His tapestries and book illustrations, stage decorations and monumental decorative projects all achieve impressive results. Without a doubt he is one of the best ceramic artists of our day. Two decades ago his works were displayed in an exhibition of the Ceramics Museum of Mettlach alongside Picasso, Braque, Chagal and Miro. But Brasilier's main field of artistic activity is painting.

His first paintings date from the first half of the last century.After completing his studies at the National School of Fine Arts in 1953, he won the Prix de Rome. During these years Brasilier liked themes from music and the circus. At the start of the 1950's, he came under the influence of Fauvism and combined the bright colors of this movement with the lessons of the French classics.

Brasilier enthusiastically worked on large figurative compositions, often drawn to natural scale (Red Circus, Parade, Elephants, the Lady Equestrian, and others).

Brasilier's musical variations are among his most important achievements. In depicting orchestra musicians, he compels us to hear the sounds of their music.

After his first canvases about music and the circus, the artist began painting pictures of horses, which he considers to be the incarnation of beauty and the energy of the world of nature.

Many of Brasilier's paintings are devoted to his muse, his wife Chantal. These canvases are executed in the genre of femme-fleur (woman as flower) in which Renoir and Matisse once worked. The artist self-confidently combines in his extraordinary compositions the likeness of Chantal with a flawlessly gathered bouquet.

The exhibition's curator, A.G. Kostenevich, has a doctorate in art history and is the chief researcher in the State Hermitage's Department of Western European Art. An illustrated scholarly catalogue has been issued by Acatos Publishing, Paris. It has introductory articles by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, French Minister of Culture, St Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, and Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky. A.G. Kostenevich is the author of the catalogue

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The exhibition catalogue

André Brasilier

At the exhibition