Don Quichotte, Circa 1990

Gérard Garouste   Famous Artists

Gérard Garouste was born in 1946 in Paris. It was in this city that he studied at the School of Fine Arts, from 1965 to 1972, in the studio of Gustave Singier. At that time he conceived scenographies of theater plays for his friend Jean-Michel Ribes. In 1977, he presented a play at Le Palace Theater, "Le classique et l'Indien", which he wrote and decorated himself . Subsequently, he was hired at the Palace as a scenographer and painter until 1982. It was during these years that the artist was diagnosed as manic depressive and then bipolar. From then on, the life of the artist was punctuated by crises, which the artist and his wife tried to overcome each time. Today, the artist lives and works in the Eure.

After doing abstract works for a while, the artist turned towards a figurative style and discovered the works of Jean Dubuffet, at the end of the Seventies. The works of the artist are figurative, mythological and allegorical. The origin, the time and transmission are major sources of inspiration for him. He works by combining ideas, sometimes disturbing, sometimes joyous, in a universe as dreary as surreal and surprisingly expressive.

Gérard Garouste's works were exhibited for the first time in Paris in 1980. They gave the artist a national reputation, which later on spread beyond the French borders. His work is exhibited in New York since 1982. The institutions follow and plebiscite his works, such as the Contemporary Art Center of Bordeaux or the Cartier Foundation. In parallel, the artist has done several prestigious public commissions, at the Elysée Palace, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and at the Cathedral of Evry, among others.