Roger Chapelain Midy, Acrobats, Oil On Panel

Roger Chapelain, known as Roger Chapelain-Midy, born on August 24, 1904, in Paris, and died in the same city on March 30, 1992, was a French painter, lithographer, illustrator, and theatrical designer. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he continued his artistic training in the painting academies of the Montparnasse district. Later, he became a professor and head of a workshop from 1955 to 1974. He exhibited in 1927 at the Salon d'Automne and from 1929 at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon des Tuileries. In 1930, Armand Drouant organized his first exhibition in his gallery on rue de Rennes in Paris. He created mural decorations for the town hall of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, the foyer of the Théâtre National de Chaillot, the Institut Agronomique de Paris, as well as decorations for ocean liners, including the SS France. A theatre decorator and costume designer since 1942, he notably worked for Rameau's Les Indes galantes in 1952, and for Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Paris Opera in 1954. For this, he received the grand prize for theatre at the Sao Paulo International Biennial in 1962. He also created illustrations for texts by Jean Giraudoux, André Gide, Charles Baudelaire, Fontenelle (Entretiens sur la plurality des mondes), Jean de La Fontaine, Charles Vildrac, Georges Simenon (La Fenêtre des Rouet, 1945).
Oil on panel, signed lower right. 67 x 86 cm