Olivier Debre

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Olivier Debre

Olivier Debré (born April 14, 1920 in Paris , France ; † June 1, 1999 ibid) was a French painter of lyrical abstraction , ceramist , author and university professor .

Life

Debré came from a Jewish family who retreated to France in 1871 after Alsace was annexed to the German Empire . His father was the pediatrician Robert Debré , his brother the politician Michel Debré . His mother was the daughter of the painter Édouard Debat-Ponsan , with whom he often spent the summer holidays in Nazelles-Négron in the Indre-et-Loire department and who encouraged him to paint, draw and sculpt.

Debré was a student at the Lycée Montaigne in Paris, where he graduated from high school, Baccalauréat , in philosophy . From 1937 he attended lectures at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris with his uncle Jacques Debat-Ponsan in the field of architecture . In 1942 he completed his studies in history at the Paris Sorbonne .

Debré was significantly influenced by Pablo Picasso after he had seen his painting Guernica in the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Exhibition . His style of painting turned completely to abstract painting . Georges Aubry showed Debre's first abstract paintings in 1943. In the same year he married Denise Coulon before joining the resistance, the Maquis , like his father and brother .

In 1946 Debré painted his first large picture La Vérité et la Justice poursuivant le crime on an 8 meter long canvas. Under the influence of André Lanskoy , his painting became very colorful. In 1949 he moved into his second studio in the Seventh Arrondissement of Paris . His paintings from this period are classified as color field painting . In 1967 a 5 × 2.5 meter painting Signe d'homme adorned the French pavilion at the world exhibition in Montréal Expo 67 . In 1971 he took part in the architectural competition to build the Center Pompidou in Paris .

From 1980 to 1985 he was appointed professor at the studio for large painting at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris. Between 1987 and 1998 he designed several stage curtains, for example for the Comédie-Française in Paris or the Opera in Shanghai . In 1992 he created his ceramics on the outer wall of the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto in Japan and the ceramics for the Daikaku-ji temple in Kyoto. In 1994 he made four steel figures for the entrance to the tunnel under the English Channel . In the following year he designed 20 vases for the Manufacture royale de porcelaine de Sèvres , which were sold in the museum shop.

Debré was buried in the Nazelles cemetery, the place where he came into intensive contact with art as a child with his grandfather.

Awards and honors

Works

  • 1964: Les deux Bleus , 146 × 114 cm, private collection.
  • 1971: Les Pins , oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm, Musée d'Évreux , France.

Exhibitions

Publications

  • L'Espace et le comportement , 1990
  • L'Œuf dans le chocolat , 1997.
  • La Marche de Madame Ouvrard , 1996.
personal data
SURNAME Debre, Olivier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French lyrical abstraction painter, ceramist, author and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1999
Place of death Paris , France