Victoire-Elisabeth Calcagni

Originally from Dax, Victoire-Elisabeth Calcagni was part of the most avant-garde group in Bordeaux in the 1950s. His abstract painting at this time was very structured, with generally dark lines of force that contrast with a fervent intensity of color. She seeks there an almost mystical vibration of matter which brings her closer to Manessier.

But it is thanks to Roger Bissière who was the great friendship of her life that she found a personal path. She will therefore deal with subjects dreamed of in a world resulting from reality, but beyond ordinary appearances, so that everyone can hang their own dream. This is what Bissière calls "recreating a world made of my memories, of my emotions where the scent of the forests that surround me remain, the color of the sky and the love of all that lives".

In her wish to magnify nature, which she translates by the sign and the pictogram, Calcagni combines both "dialogue with the visible" and "the space of the interior", in a climate of total freedom and playful fantasy.

Staying regularly in Algeria, this sun-drenched land inspires him with a palette of ocher-red, Siena lands and shadow lands, natural or burnt.

Her commitment to “abstract landscaping" ensures her artistic descent thanks to Christian Gardair who apprenticed with her, as well as through the work of Claude Lagoutte.

His spiritual elevation attracted the attention of the most daring clergy who commissioned him for tapestries and numerous stained glass windows in France, Switzerland and Poland. These achievements make Calcagni an important actor in the great revival of sacred art in the 1950s and 1960s, along with Bissière, Manessier and Vieira da Silva.

His art is present in the Museums of Bordeaux, Dax, Saintes and Soulac as well as in certain Swiss and Polish institutions.

Bibliography:
Victoire-Elisabeth Calcagni, by Fausto Mata, editions William Blake and Co.