Jacques Villeglé

Jacques Villeglé, (Jacques Mahé de la Villegle) was born in Quimper on March 27, 1926. He was a French painter and visual artist and a founding member of the New Realists. He is considered to be the most prominent affichiste.

In the early '50s, Villeglé called himself an "affichiste" and starts talking about the “guerrilla of signs". He kept "the journal of the street world ". He collected, kept track and showed his ripped posters, a "reflection of the dominant culture". He wanted to create a popular body of work and provide a trace of the life of an era (its political, social and cultural context).

From December 1949, with artist Raymond Hains, Villeglé collected pieces of posters, and their first poster, "Ach Alma Manétro", was a joint work. The selective work of the artist has been shown in more than 140 personal exhibitions in Europe and America since 1957. In 1958, Villeglé wrote a piece about lacerated posters entitled "Collective Realities". It is the prefiguration of the New Realism manifesto. In 1959 he created Lacéré anonyme. Staring in 1969, he imagined a "socio-political alphabet" as a tribute to Serge Tchakhotine.

In 2007, the artist started making sculptures using traditional techniques (bronze, glass) as well as industrial techniques (Corten steel, polished stainless steel, cast iron). He passed away in 2022.