Gérard Fromanger (6 September 1939 – 18 June 2021) was a French

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

. A painter who also employed

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, sculpture, photography, cinema, and lithography, he was associated with the French artistic movement of the 1960s and 1970s, called ''Figuration Narrative'' (new figurative representation), somewhat like pop art. Fromanger was also associated with

photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can b ...

. Fromanger studied at the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where his first solo exhibition was held in 1966. ''Souffles'', his large translucent "half-balloon" street sculptures, attracted attention in 1968. He also collaborated with

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

to make the short "Film-tract 1968". His work represents themes of urban life and

consumer society Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...

. The ''Nouvelle Figuration'' movement (sometimes called ''figuration narrative'' or ''représentation narrative'') is considered to have been a reaction against

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

, with a more political slant than American pop art. Fromanger has been described as a social critic who takes a political position without neglecting the poetic dimension.

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

, a friend of Fromanger's, wrote about his work in ''Photogenic Painting''. In 2005, a retrospective exhibition, ''Gérard Fromanger: rétrospective 1962–2005'', was shown at various galleries in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Fromanger lived and worked in both

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

and

Books

*Bernard Ceysson ''Gérard Fromanger'' (Catalogue for retrospective exhibition 2005) *Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault ''Photogenic Painting'' (2000) *Alain Jouffroy ''Gérard Fromanger'' (1973) *Serge July ''Fromanger'' (2000)

References

Interview with Fromanger, plus pictures and videosCentre PompidouFrench National Library
* Nouvelle Figuration

External links

Interview with FromangerFromanger and JouffroyPortrait of Gérard Fromanger
by Braun-Vega (1984) 1939 births 2021 deaths People from Yvelines Painters from Île-de-France 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters 21st-century French painters 21st-century French male artists Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres {{France-painter-20thC-stub