Le baiser, The kiss, 1994
Gilles Cormery

Gilles CORMERY (1950 Tours France 1999). 'He was born and reluctantly returned to Touraine to die there in October 1999, after long journeys of wandering and the incessant quest for Love, reading and painting, his only armor. Painter, writer and poet, he will sometimes be described by art critics as 'Nabi', 'Painter of Art Brut', or 'Painter of Singular Art' but, if he is unclassifiable for many, Gilles Cormery most certainly belongs to the 'Free Artists', my dear 'Good for Nothings or Living Treasures' who are my Credo, and these anarchists of the Art of 'The School of Post-War Paris (1945-2000)' who are the 'Litterati', the literate painters, like the Chinese Zhu Xinjian (1953-2014) or the Japanese Key Hiraga (1936 – 2000) who will live for a time in a fervent Paris. They will share the daily life of 'Trente Glorieuses pas glorieuses', with an offbeat humor sometimes bitter, as well as the frantic quest for a vast culture, literature and Love, the real one, the only one that counts! That of 'L'AMOR à mort' the only light! Even purer than gold, on this humble earth'. As the art critic Jeanine Rivais writes so well: 'Gilles Cormery Painting on bottle cartons because he was totally destitute, rejected by all the right-thinking people who would have tolerated him if he had painted bouquets of flowers; rejected by art officials produced despite everything, thousands of works that when he died, his father, hostile and contemptuous to the end decided to throw in the trash. Fortunately, some were, narrowly, saved by a member of the family. But it was too late for the beautiful retrospective exhibition of the year 2000 that Gilles had dreamed of so much. Death came by, knocking him down in a gutter'.Indeed, Gilles Cormery in agony will be thrown onto the sidewalk by his last murderous muse Lydie. With his friend Gilbert and K… they plundered his studio by fleeing with the works of the exhibition of the year 2000 that Gilles had prepared with his young sister with fervor, to finally free themselves from the iron family rule and their disdain.These works still remain to this day, stolen and reported to the OCBC. But if K repented and publicly denounced the hoax of the theft of the paintings from the Château de Tours, sadly, his father, unaware of the tragedy that was playing out before his eyes, distributed the remaining works to his three assassins, inviting them to the funeral while forbidding Gilles' little sister access to his studio, because he felt that she supported him by: 'encouraging her brother to be lazy' and exhibiting him in his gallery for years. 'The die was cast! 'Philippe Tancelin, Director of the Poètes des Cinq Continents Collection, Professor at the University of Paris 8, contemplates Gilles' paintings and writes: 'Spirits flock there in multitudes, they are in search of reality, of the potential for love vis-à-vis a consumerist reality of the romantic relationship... the canvas becomes a scene of confrontation between the vulgar and the simple... only a few paintings remain and summon us to such humility of Seeing that it is perhaps enough to join what of our childhood does not leave us in life, to welcome the incessant and serious game of the Fête de l'Homme qui a Peint...'Christian Favereau, Director of the Château de Tours defends and exhibits the retrospective 'Passions Fauves de Gilles Cormery' in 2012 and proceeds with a very beautiful hanging in the maze of rooms of the Château Musée. He invents a poetic itinerary, evocative of the artist's dreamlike and romantic universe. For Christian Favereau: 'Gilles Cormery oscillates between Fauvism and the Nabi movement as the colours explode to translate onto the medium the flashes that possess him. These fleshy areas where the artist wants to lose himself, or perhaps lose us, sometimes burst forth very feminine with all their seductive charge. The painting 'Her embers' hips', on bottle cardboard, perfectly illustrates this point. A naked silhouette from behind, brushed in broad strokes sets the painting on fire.' Lise Cormery, as early as 1987, built a bridge between Zhu Xinjian and Gilles Cormery, during the exhibition in her gallery 'Zhu Xinjian and the beauty of the flesh 朱新建': 'The art of Zhu Xinjian (1953-199) like that of Gilles Cormery suffers from the prudishness and hypocrisy of the Tartuffes, both in France and in China, who, although 'thinking only of that', throw into the 'Hells' of the National Libraries or art collections the naked bodies that sing the love and beauty of the world. In a sinister artistic time where vulgarity prevails and Botticelli is banned, Zhu Xinjian and Gilles Cormery have the audacity to always paint in contrast to a contemporary art of the Post-War period which ignores the freehand art of the Masters, sublimating the non-existent allied to ugliness and decrepitude. Zhu Xinjian and Gilles Cormery in a style that some will call literary or 'Litterati', tame the painting, calligraphy or drawing of yesteryear and today, to better exalt the passion and delights of innocent flesh in the natural and generous impulse of bodies that abandon themselves before the painter and us.'In her book 'The Art of the Post-War School of Paris (1945-2000)' Lise Cormery also writes about Key HIRAGA (1936-2000) and underlines between these two 'Litterati' painters the sharing of the brilliance of improbable but screamingly true colors, the same verve, the scathing humor, the delicate or grotesque eroticism that subtly denounces hypocrisy, like that of the three characters around a table in the painting 'The elegant life of Mr H' painted in Paris in 1967 by Key HIRAGA. 'Hiraga's painting of The Human Comedy in an atomic and psychedelic world and the Dionysian cult of the dear flesh' like that of Cormery (1950-1999) and Zhu Xinjian (1953-1994), surges for a new art, that of the 21st century, and regardless of the academic Tartuffes. Because, in May 1968 in Paris it is the 'Sexual Liberation', the pseudo-revolution of spoiled children who have no other goal than to arrogate political power with impunity. Hiraga gets drunk on this freedom and the Trente Glorieuses during which everything seems possible. He paints what is shocking at the time, yet so common in the era of 'Porno Chic', because indeed, why treat as obscene what is only life, sexual, raw, joyful, uninhibited when it is deliciously shared with sincerity?' SOLO SHOWS Galerie Lia Grambihler, Paris, 1987, 1991, 1993. Galerie Philippe Grand, Paris, 1988. Galerie Art et Communication, Paris, 1985 to 1999. Galerie Lise Cormery since 1985. Galerie Philippe Lawson, Paris, 2012, 2013.BOOKS on Gilles CORMERY: Series 'In Search of the Lost Work of Gilles Cormery''My paintings are no longer for sale, thank you, My + here below is finished' Lise Cormery, Patricia Clark Museum, Iowa Falls, United States, AMI, Paris, 1999, 104 p. 'The Red Palette Fauve Nights where my Scarlet Heart bursts The Red Palette Fauve Nights, Sad scarlet heart' 'Catalogue Raisonné of the painted work of Gilles Cormery', Lise Cormery, 186 four-color pages, French, English, Université Paris Cité Diderot, 2012. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Château de Tours, 2012.'AMOR A Mort', 'Catalogue Raisonné of the painted work of Gilles Cormery' Book I, expanded and revised edition of 'The Red Palette', Book II, 'The Mystical Palette' and 'The Erotic Palette', Lise Cormery, Michelangelo Editions, Paris, 2018, 400 four-color pages, French, English, Chinese.'The Tamer of Colors' 'Catalogue Raisonné of the painted work of Gilles Cormery', Book III and Book IV with the paintings of 'The Yellow Palette', 'The Rainbow Palette', 'The Blue Palette', 'The Green Palette', 'The Violet Palette', 'The Siena Palette', 'The Black Palette', Lise Cormery, Michelangelo Editions, Paris, 2018, 400 four-color pages, French, English, Chinese.'Let's Dream the Night City' Catalogue Raisonné of the drawn and engraved work of Gilles Cormery. Book V 'Drawings' Book VI 'Inks', Book VII 'Prints', Book VIII 'Sculptures', Lise Cormery, Michelangelo Editions, Paris, 2023, 400 four-color pages, French, English, Chinese.'Francisco Santoro The plot of the ogres at Monte Cassino', Biography of Gilles Cormery and his paternal and maternal lineage. History book. Battle of Bir-Hakeim Italian Campaign and Battle of Monte Cassino. The Resistance of the independent railway workers of the SNCF in France. History of the 'invisible heroes' who sacrificed their lives for the Liberation of France and Europe, without losing their soul and lowering themselves to begging for the 'Legion of Dishonor'.Lise Cormery, Michelangelo Publications, Paris, 2023, 252 pages. ART REVIEWSPatricia Clark, Founder in 2003 of the Pat Clark Collection, Carnegie Ellsworth Museum, Iowa Falls, United States which includes a collection of 16 paintings including a complete 'Chapelle Universelle de l'Archange Saint Michel' by Gilles Cormery and a purple Indian ink on paper. Reine Marie Paris de la Chapelle, granddaughter of Paul Claudel and expert on Camille Claudel draws a parallel between Camille Claudel and Gilles Cormery. They both died on October 19 and their tragic destinies seem intertwined despite the passage of time. Philippe Ronce, filmmaker, Shiatsu Master and Tibetan Buddhist. Jeanine Rivais, Art Critic. Christian Favereau, Curator of the Château de Tours. Charles Tanguy, Art Critic. Nicole Lamothe, Art Critic and Journalist. Philippe Tancelin, Poet and Director of the Poets of the Five Continents Collection Paris, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy at the University of Paris 8.CINEMARaoul Sangla, television personality and director of numerous art-house films, enlightened art lover, touched by painting and the 1999 book on Gilles Cormery 'My works are no longer for sale, thank you! My + here below is finished' creates his latest film, camera on the shoulder 'La Passion de Gilles Cormery', which premiered on September 26, 2013, in the spirit of the painter and director, at the cinema 'Los Desperados' by Jean Pierre Mocky, rue des écoles in Paris in the Latin Quarter.After the premiere, the Galerie Philippe Lawson is organizing a preview of Gilles Cormery's paintings, with his famous work on bottle cardboard 'Du balai l'artiste!The 1200-page Catalogues Raisonnés collate the artist's works and poems from 1965 to 1999 as well as the transcription of the film 'La Passion de Gilles Cormery with its dialogues. The film is put online by the University Paris Cité Diderot on RAP Réseau Académique Parisien and YouTube with the 2004 videoconference, entitled 'Raoul Sangla. Art and Television. The Cultural Desert?' where he masterfully and friendly evokes the freedom of artistic creation on television.On the death of Raoul Sangla who unfortunately left us in 2021, the newspaper L'Humanité paid a beautiful 'Tribute to Raoul Sangla' on June 1, 2021: 'Director of many programs, such as Discorama (...) Raoul Sangla arrived on television at the end of 1959 with Stellio Lorenzi, he then chained many TV productions, documentaries and fictions, experimenting with long sequence shots, or giving a youthful look to the JT. He will set a school until 2013 and his feature film: 'La passion de Gilles Cormery', on the life and painted work of the painter and poet.'Excerpt from 'The Art of the Post-War School of Paris (1945-2000)' and 'The Litterati Painters', Lise Cormery, Michelangelo Publications, Paris, 2020.Free Artists, 'Good-for-Nothings' or 'Living Treasures', Lise Cormery, Université Paris Cité Diderot, 200 pages, 2007.