Gérard Fromanger (6 September 1939 – 18 June 2021) was a French visual artist. A painter who also employed

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

, sculpture, photography, cinema, and lithography, he was associated with the French artistic movement of the 1960s and 1970s, called ''Figuration Narrative'' (new figurative representation), somewhat like pop art. Fromanger was alsi associated with

photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

. Fromanger studied at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where his first solo exhibition was held in 1966. ''Souffles'', his large translucent "half-balloon" street sculptures, attracted attention in 1968. He also collaborated with

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran� ...

to make the short "Film-tract 1968". Urban life and the consumer society are themes well represented in his work. The ''Nouvelle Figuration'' movement (sometimes called ''figuration narrative'' or ''représentation narrative'') is considered to have been a reaction against

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

, with a more political slant than American pop art. Fromanger has been described as a social critic who takes a political position without neglecting the poetic dimension.

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

, a friend of Fromanger's, wrote about his work in ''Photogenic Painting''. In 2005, a retrospective exhibition, ''Gérard Fromanger: rétrospective 1962–2005'', was shown at various galleries in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Fromanger lived and worked in both

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

and

Books

*Bernard Ceysson ''Gérard Fromanger'' (Catalogue for retrospective exhibition 2005) *Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault ''Photogenic Painting'' (2000) *Alain Jouffroy ''Gérard Fromanger'' (1973) *Serge July ''Fromanger'' (2000)

References

Interview with Fromanger, plus pictures and videosCentre PompidouFrench National Library
*

Nouvelle Figuration Nouvelle is a French language, French word, the feminine form of "new". It may refer to: ;Places * Nouvelle, Quebec, a municipality in Quebec, Canada * Nouvelle-Église, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, France * Port-la-Nouvelle, a commune ...

External links

Interview with FromangerFromanger and JouffroyPortrait of Gérard Fromanger
by Braun-Vega (1984) 1939 births 2021 deaths People from Yvelines 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters 21st-century French painters 21st-century French male artists Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres {{France-painter-20thC-stub