Paul Rebeyrolle

Born in Eymoutiers, France, Paul Rebeyrolle (1925-2005) started out painting the rural landscape of his home region. He went on to study at Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and drew inspiration from contemporaries such as Picasso, Leger, Chagall and Soutine. When the Louver reopened in 1947, he became fascinated with Renaissance painters and seventeenth-century Netherlandish masters such as Rembrandt and Rubens. This heralded a period of classic inspiration, and in 1950 he won the coveted Prix de la Jeune Peinture. Some criticized the jury’s decision due to the conservative direction of Rebeyrolle’s paintings, but the prize enhanced his status as a leading proponent of French Realism. During this period his works exercised great influence on British realists.

In 1956 Rebeyrolle began developing a looser style. Throughout the 1960s his brushwork became freer and the motifs almost dissolved in expressive, astoundingly virtuoso swashes of paint. Studying his oeuvre in retrospect, it is dominated by paintings executed in a highly expressive and personal idiom. The motifs are often grotesque. Throughout his life, Rebeyrolle was politically active and unafraid to depict a world in crisis, or to paint pictures of what he perceived as mankind’s true nature.

The painting Amélioration de la santé (1999) is from Rebeyrolle’s late period. It includes one of his leitmotifs – a human figure in the process of disintegrating. The picture’s somewhat ironic title means 'healthier', but here we seem to be witnessing the worst of human depravity. The spurting paint combined with glued-on textile and dirt clod redoubles the impression of degradation. Here, in a painting about which it is impossible to be ambivalent, Rebeyrolle displays a passionate relation to the world and to the human condition.

Rebeyrolle experimented a great deal and was known to use dirt, sand, wood, iron, horsehair and feathers, among other things. These unconventional materials are easily noticed in his many landscapes. Instead of telling stories, he sought to show us the earth’s surface, for instance a riverbed, but to do so in a way that emphasized palpable, physical reality. We can thus draw a parallel between Rebeyrolle and the German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer.

As for Rebeyrolle’s painting techniques, there is a clear connection to American Abstract Expressionism, especially to drip techniques, and it is also possible to see an affinity to Francis Bacon. But whereas Bacon concentrated on introverted psychological motifs, Rebeyrolle’s works display his strong personal commitment to humanism.

Today one can experience approximately 40 of Rebeyrolle’s works at Espace Paul Rebeyrolle, near the artist’s home town.

HBU