“the Turbots” 1964 Gerard Diaz (1938 -)

Gérard Diaz, born October 27, 1938, in Mostaganem, Algeria; 1954-1951, Oran School of Fine Arts; 1957-1961, Paris School of Fine Arts; 1957, settled in Paris; 1968-1970, taught drawing for the City of Paris; 1971, taught at the Rouen School of Fine Arts. Painter. In 1980, he painted sketches of ancient architecture in the style of Piranesi, full of nuances and gradations, with the same site reproduced as a fictional postcard, pasted onto them. And ten years later, while remaining faithful to his native land, he does so with a stark contrast of backlit, sunset lighting, their unusual hues for temperate regions reminiscent of 19th-century Orientalists. As darkness settles in and shadows lengthen ominously, the sky blazes with slow, violet hues. The style is resolutely contemporary and expressive, and the landscape is structured behind an obstructing, vegetal foreground that contributes to the coppery anguish of the day's end. Exhibited: 1975, Brinkman, Amsterdam; 1976, Jean Briance, Paris; 1993, Patrice Trigano, Paris. Oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled on the reverse "Les Turbots" (The Turbots), dated 1964 and countersigned. Dimensions: 73 x 100 cm. With contemporary American-style frame: 77 x 104 cm