Read the text of the catalogue being prepared Fernand Teyssier, Figure and Things
Consult the documentBiographical elements and selection of exhibitions
Known above all for his "pop" period of 1966-1971, Fernand Teyssier is attached to the current of Narrative Figuration, alongside Eduardo Arroyo, Gilles Aillaud, Hendi Cueco, Gérard Tisserand, Gérard Fromanger, Hervé Télémaque, Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Antonio Recalcati, Peter Saul, Valerio Adami, Alain Jacquet, Gérard Schlosser, Peter Klasen and more.
But the otherssteps of his career also gave rise toworks remarkable that the upcoming monograph exhibition (May-June 2022) will strive to highlight.
Taken as a whole, Fernand Teyssier's work establishes a subtle dialogue between the figure and things, between the human body and objects, pictorially treated equally.
Born in Paris in 1937 in a modest environment, Fernand Teyssier gives up joining the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris following severe hazing. He therefore undertook to paint and draw on his own, in an expressionist vein, before attending classes at the Grande Chaumière and being introduced to engraving with Jean Delpech.
In the early 1960s, he began to exhibit and met the poet Alain Lance with whom he collaborated on the publication of various collections.
During these years, he carried out military service of a disciplinary nature (because he was rebellious) in Germany, where he met the artist Ulrike Ottinger.
Because of this deep artistic friendship, he will be one of the few artists of his generation to exhibit more in Germany than in France from 1961 to 1971.
He is also distinguished by his link with Denmark, where he enjoyed a major exhibition in 1965.
From 1965-66, he adopted a Pop aesthetic with a political message. He was then very close to the organizing committee of the Salon Jeune Peinture at the forefront of the Narrative Figuration movement. He was a member of the jury in 1966.
In 1972, he brought about a turning point both in his work and in his career.
He goes to Peru. Then, the next few years, he made long stays in Laos. He will be imprisoned in 1977 in the prison of Health for a case related to his consumption of opiates.
During the 1970s and until the end of his life, his style underwent several essential changes in design, color and composition.
He dialogues with the old masters (Dürer, Da Vinci, Arcimboldo, Goya, Le Nain) and modern ones (Van Gogh, Jawlensky, Klee, Picasso), questions the representation of dreams, flirts with geometric abstraction, is inspired by poems by Francis Pongé.
He was then accompanied by the gallery L'Oeil de Bœuf created by Cérès Franco.
In March 1988, he ended his life.
Since 2012, initiatives have gradually brought to light his work:
First stage, personal exhibition at the Halle Saint-Pierre gallery in 2012.
In 2016,Live Peacefully, retrospective exhibition at the Montparnasse gallery.
Thanks to Alain Matarasso, personal exhibition at the Galerie du Center in 2016, and collective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad in 2017, with in particular Peter Saul, Emmanuel Proweller, Gérard Guyomard, Derek Boschier, Anthony Donaldson.
Thanks to Dominique Polad-Hardouin, collective exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts of Carcassonne in 2013, then at La Coopérative-Musée Cérès Franco in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021, with the assistance of Jean-Hubert Martin then Rafaël Koenig.
In 2019, Fernand Teyssier exhibition organized at the Château Lescombes Contemporary Art Center in Eysines.
In 2020, first collaboration of the Kaléidoscope gallery with the family of Fernand Teyssier for the exhibitionROSE(S) - Seven painters from 1960 to the present day - Color as a cultural construct, with Michel Pastoureau's contribution to the catalogue.