Anselme Bois-Vives

From his youth as a Catalan shepherd, Anselme Boix-Vives has kept the flamboyant memory of nature. Came to settle in France at the age of 18, he exercised various trades there before opening a fruit and vegetable business in Moûtiers in 1926. He was naturalized French in March 19401.

In the mid-1950s, he began a utopian project that he would carry all his life, a "plan for world peace", manifesto in support.

In 1962, on the death of his wife, he stopped his business and devoted himself to painting. For seven years, he produced more than 2,000 colorful, highly expressive and original works, where the human figure, with often apelike features, blends with lush vegetation. When he died in 1969, a major exhibition paid homage to him at the Denise Berteau gallery in Paris2.

An exhibition paid tribute to him at the Museum of Fine Arts in Chambéry from November 25, 2017 to March 11, 2018.