Post-cubist Still Life, 1950s, By Pierre Gougerot

Pierre GOUGEROT (1931-2016)
Composition with Musical Instruments and Chessboard, circa 1959
Oil on kraft paper mounted on Isorel.
100 x 65 cm
Inscribed on the back of the stretcher: “P.GOUCEROT, 69 r. Caulaincourt”
Provenance: purchased from the artist's studio on rue Caulaincourt.

An early work by Pierre GOUGEROT, dating from his post-Cubist period.
Executed in the late 1950s while attending the Frochot Academy, where he studied under Jean Metzinger and was strongly influenced by the art of Roger de la Fresnaye, Giorgio Morandi, and Bram Van Velde. He later formed close friendships with Cottavoz and Olivier Debré, who would have a lasting influence on him. While remaining figurative, his painting would henceforth position itself on the edge of abstraction.

A secretive artist, he nevertheless exhibited his works at the Paris Biennale (Malraux, 1961-1963) - at the Salons de la Jeune Peinture (1961 to 1964) - at the Salon des Grands et Jeunes (1964) - in the United States (“20 Young Painters of the School of Paris” 1963-1964) - at the Kriegel Gallery (“Three Young Painters”, 1983) - at the Simone Badinier Gallery (1965) - at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (1967 - 1989) - at Galerie 7 (rue de Miromesnil, 1968) - at the Jacob Gallery (Extra-groupe) - in the Halle au Blé, in Alençon (“Figuration d'Aujourd'hui” 1973-1974) - at the 1st Contemporary Art Biennale (Brest, 1979) - at the Gustave Courbet Museum (purchase of a work by the Museum) - at the Bernay Museum (with Ubac and Olivier Debré, 1985) - at the Plateau d'Assy (with Tal Coat and Bram van Velde, August 1989) - at the Etienne de Causans Gallery (rue de Seine, 1989)

“Shortly before the last war, a little boy uses for the first time in the street the box of oil paints that his parents have just given him. It's near the rue de l'Abreuvoir in Montmartre. A man with a wooden leg buys the paint and takes him to his studio to pay him. It was Gen Paul, it was Gougerot, it was his first client, the one with whom he would work ten years later. In the meantime, before military service, he finds a small job at the Frochot Academy where he meets and works with Jean Metzinger. Then, almost by chance, he finds himself in Gen Paul's studio, where they spent several years of friendship and diverse literary and pictorial encounters. He then moved to his current studio on rue Caulaincourt. Bores, Tal Coat, Pignon, and the painters of the Lyon School, Truphemus and Cottavoz, became part of his circle and guided his artistic approach. Then came the shock: Nicolas de Staël, who managed to move beyond abstraction and return to figuration, confirming to Gougerot that one could paint in opposition to the "gang of abstraction before!" What followed was the tireless continuation of this style, a rigor that makes his painting unclassifiable, erasing the influences of La Fresnaye, Morandi, and Bram van Velde to return to his true sources: Romanesque frescoes, African art, and Persian and Egyptian antiquity. Pierre Gougerot doesn't need to sign his canvases; his painting is unique. – Raymond Lansoy