Jean-pierre Blanche (1927-2022), Double Pomegranates, Oil On Canvas, Signed On The Right

Jean-Pierre Blanche, born in 1927, arrived in Aix-en-Provence in 1965. He lived and had his studio at 3 Adanson, in the Hôtel de Ramatuelle, which now houses the Galerie Jeanne Bossert. JP Blanche studied at the Beaux-Arts schools of Montpellier and then Paris. He received the Villa Ab-Del-Tif prize in 1955. After exploring the Mediterranean coast, he settled in the Montpellier region, in Puéchabon, in 1964. Upon arriving in Aix, he was appointed professor of drawing at the School of Arts and Architecture in Marseille. Jean-Pierre Blanche is a studio artist; his painting seeks to transcribe the world through landscape, using the transparency of materials and light. Through the subjects of his paintings—windows, the studio, pomegranates, nights, Vauvenargues—he expresses a highly poetic and colorful impression. From the 1990s until his death in 2022, pastel was his primary mode of expression; "it's the means of uniting painting and drawing," as he confided to Michel Hilaire, former curator of the Musée Fabre. The strength of his painting stems from his unwavering commitment to never neglect drawing in favor of color, nor color in favor of drawing. He expressed this very well himself: "When I work with color, drawing brings me back to reality," "When I draw with black chalk, charcoal, or India ink, I think in terms of color." The grandeur and originality of his painting result from his desire to remain apart from trends and fashions, and to live as close to nature as possible. His works express inner serenity and great harmony. His figurative painting is modern; he increasingly focuses on the essential, sometimes reducing the subject to the point of approaching abstraction. Jean-Pierre Blanche has exhibited at, among other places, the Musée Estrine in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, and the Musée Regards de Provence in Marseille in 2024.