Hubert Aicardi (1922-1991), Cloud, Circa 1960, Oil On Panel

Hubert AICARDI (1922-1991)
Cloud, circa 1960
Oil on Isorel panel
Signed lower left
10.5 × 16 cm
frame 18 × 22.5 cm

Hubert Aicardi is a painter of the Provençal school born in Marseille in 1922. His vocation for painting asserted itself from childhood without ever being thwarted by his parents who were themselves passionate about art. He initially trained at the School of Fine Arts in his hometown before joining the School of Fine Arts in Paris. He frequented the “Péano painters,” named after the café on Rue Fortia where post-war Provençal masters such as Arsène Sari (1895-1995), Pierre Ambrogiani (1907-1985) and Eugène Baboulène (1905-1994) met.

Based in Provence, Hubert Aicardi created unique views of the rocky landscapes and seaside of his native region that broke with traditional representations and those of the Cézanne heritage. He preferred the infinite spaces of sand and pebbles or the fine grayness of wet skies. Within these inanimate landscapes, the unusual absence of man and the absolute silence are astonishing when they are not disturbing.  A great solitary man, the spirit of the work bears witness to the complex nature of the artist : “Only the world that I create exists for me”*.

He is also the author of several illustrations, including that of L'Anneau des mers by Edouard Peisson, published in 1952 by Flammarion. Since the 1970s, the Galerie Jouvène (Marseille) has dedicated several solo exhibitions to him.

The breath of rigor and invention

“Everything is true, and yet nothing is exactly reproduced. Everything is fantasy, and yet each element is recognizable. Aicardi’s paradox lies in the fact that the rigor of his paintings has breath, and the realism he uses is invented. The coves, the beaches, the tree, the forest fire, the boats, the small ports, the windows, the walls, the palisades, the summers of leaden skies, the flowery springs, the glacial winters, the autumns adorned with Byzantine goldwork, are the themes of his universe in non-chronological order. They celebrated in advance the world of the unusual where he has just taken up his winter quarters: that of the demiurges.” André Alauzen di Genova, historian, journalist and art critic (1924-1998), 1991.

*Marseille, n°82, July-August-September 1907, pp. 31-35.