Jean Bertholle, 1909-1996 : L'ombre Et La Lumière

Influenced by his contemporaries, but also by Bruegel and Bosch, the work of Jean Bertholle (1909-1996), one of the most important painters of the École de Paris, reveals a strange mysticism, sometimes disturbing, but always tending towards the light.

A close friend of Alfred Manessier, Zoran Music, Estève, Jean Bazaine, Jean Le Moal and Roger Bissière, as well as the sculptors Étienne Martin and François Stahly, Bertholle observed Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism, while already being greatly inspired by the strangeness and symbolism of certain masters of the Middle Ages. He would say that the paintings of Jérôme Bosch guided him towards an unusual type of painting, where madness breaks into everyday life and rubs shoulders with the most innocent dreams. An inspired painter imbued with spirituality, he often oscillated between embodied and imagined objects, between abstraction and figuration, like the fundamental tension between body and spirit that has haunted Christian spirituality since its origins.

This first complete monograph devoted to Bertholle reveals for the first time a panorama of Jean Bertholle's artistic career, including not only his paintings but also his stained-glass windows, tapestries, drawings and mosaics, enabling us to share in the veritable mystical quest that animated the artist.