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Repères biographiques - Fernand Teyssier

Download the catalog of the monographic exhibition which will be held from May 12 to June 18, 2022

 

 

Known primarily for his "pop" period from 1966-1971, Fernand Teyssier is associated with the Figuration Narrative movement, alongside artists such as 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 others.

 

However, other phases of his artistic journey have also produced remarkable works that the upcoming monographic exhibition in May-June 2022 will seek to highlight.

 

As a whole, Fernand Teyssier's body of work establishes a subtle dialogue between the figure and objects, between the human body and objects, treated pictorially on an equal footing.

Born in Paris in 1937 in a modest environment, Fernand Teyssier gave 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 and Philippe Soupault.

In the early 1960s, he began exhibiting his work and met the poet Alain Lance, with whom he collaborated on various publications.

 

During these years, he served a disciplinary military service in Germany (as a conscientious objector), where he met the artist, Ulrike Ottinger.

 

Due to this profound artistic friendship, he was one of the few artists of his generation to exhibit more in Germany than in France from 1961 to 1971.

 

He also had a significant connection with Denmark, where he had a major exhibition at the Den Frie Udstilling gallery in 1965.

 

Starting in 1965-66, he adopted a Pop Art aesthetic with political messages. He was closely associated with the organizing committee of the Salon Jeune Peinture and was a jury member in 1966.

 

In 1972, he underwent a significant shift both in his work and life journey. He traveled to Peru and, in the following years, made extended stays in Laos. In 1977, he was incarcerated in the Santé prison in a case related to his opiate consumption.

 

Throughout the 1970s and until the end of his life, his style underwent several essential transformations, not only in drawing but also in color and composition. He engaged with both classical (Dürer, Da Vinci, Arcimboldo, Goya, Le Nain) and modern masters (Van Gogh, Jawlensky, Klee, Picasso), questioned the representation of dreams, flirted with geometric abstraction, and drew inspiration from the poems of Francis Ponge. During this time, he was accompanied by the L'Œil de Bœuf Gallery created by Cérès Franco.

In March 1988, he took his own life.

 

Since 2012, various initiatives have been gradually shedding light on his work:

 

In 2012, a solo exhibition at the Halle Saint-Pierre Gallery.

In 2016, "Vivez Tranquille," a retrospective exhibition at the Montparnasse Gallery.

At the initiative of Alain Matarasso, a solo exhibition at the Centre Gallery in 2016, and a group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad in 2017, featuring artists such as Peter Saul, Emmanuel Proweller, Gérard Guyomard, Derek Boschier, Jann Haworth, and Anthony Donaldson.

Thanks to Dominique Polad-Hardouin, group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Carcassonne in 2013, and at La Coopérative-Musée Cérès Franco in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021, with the support of Jean-Hubert Martin and Rafaël Koenig.

In 2019, an exhibition organized at the Château Lescombes in Eysines.

In 2020, the first collaboration between the Kaléidoscope gallery and Fernand Teyssier's family for the exhibition "ROSE(S) - Seven Painters from 1960 to Today - Color as Cultural Construction," with contributions by Michel Pastoureau in the catalog.

Fernand Teyssier has become part of the Figuration Narrative collection of the Gandur Foundation for Art.

In 2023, the Kaléidoscope gallery presented his works in the exhibition "Paris Nouvelle figuration 1957 - 1965."

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