Bernard Gantner (1928-2018)

Bernard GANTNER (1928-2018) Snow on the Road to Fresse, Haute-Saône, (circa 1975) oil on canvas, signed lower right, 81 x 100 cm. Born August 16, 1928, in Belfort, died June 1, 2018. Painter of landscapes, snow scenes, still lifes, gouache, watercolor, engraver, and illustrator, Bernard Gantner was an accomplished artist of international renown. From a very young age, he showed an interest in the arts. Encouraged by the curator of the Belfort Museum, he decided at the age of ten to dedicate his life to painting. In 1961, he received the "Critics' Prize" awarded by his friend, the famous writer and critic Claude Roger-Marx. Bernard Gantner then embarked on the beginning of an international career. "Fifty solo exhibitions in Japan, sixty in the United States, about ten in Canada, exhibitions in England and in all the major cities of France. Retrospectives at the Château de Val, Baume-les-Dames Abbey, Florival Museum in Guebwiller, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Vittel, Chicago, Basel, Tokyo. Numerous acquisitions by museums in France and abroad." In 1998, he was awarded the Legion of Honour. He opened the Espace Gantner in Bourogne and donated his lithographic work: more than 550 lithographs as well as etchings; he illustrated, among other works, the short stories of Maupassant, the poems of E. Verhaeren, and published about ten bibliophile books, often in collaboration with Claude Roger-Marx. After living on the shores of Lake Geneva, Bernard Gantner returned to his native region where he devotes his time to his art, his museum, and the beautification of the surrounding gardens, which he transforms and designs himself. He finds his inspiration in the landscapes around him, constantly capturing snow, water, and vegetation in all their forms, in every season, with a particular fondness for old, snow-covered farmhouses against a backdrop of fir trees in the Vosges Mountains and Haute-Savoie region.