Georges Bauquier

Georges Bauquier, born on March 31, 1910 in Aigues-Mortes, died on April 2, 1997 in Callian (Var), is a talented French painter and man of culture, friend of the greatest contemporaries: Picasso, Chagall, Aragon, Blaise Cendrars, and of course, Fernand Leger.

From his childhood in Nîmes, Georges Bauquier showed a taste for drawing. In 1934 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then in 1936 the École d'Art Contemporain directed by Fernand Leger, where he became a teacher. Having joined the Communist Party, he participated in the Resistance and was imprisoned at the Santé prison in 1944.

After the war, Georges Bauquier found Léger. After the death of Fernand Léger, whose assistant he was, he undertook with the widow of Fernand Léger, Nadia Léger, the construction of the Fernand-Léger Museum in Biot (Alpes-Maritimes), which became a national museum in 1969. André Malraux, Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, inaugurated the new "Fernand-Léger National Museum" and Georges Bauquier was its director until 1993.

Georges Bauquier from 1990 directed the drafting of the Catalogue raisonné of the work of Léger in 8 volumes.

Dazzled by the genius and friendship of Fernand Léger during his lifetime and after, Georges Bauquier, too absorbed by this work, put aside his own work except on rare occasions.

Georges Bauquier has therefore developed an original work in parallel. His exhibitions were notably prefaced by Fernand Léger, at the Louis Carré gallery in 1953, Blaise Cendrars at the Bernheim gallery in 1955, and Jean Lescure in the 1970s.

Strongly structured and vividly colored, Bauquier's painting places his path between figuration and abstraction. 

Keeping the same characteristics, Bauquier's Compositions overflow around 1966 into abstraction. 

He retired to Callian where he died in 1997.