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Jean Bazaine

"Art, before being an instrument of pleasure, is an affirmation of human rights."

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Notes of biography

Jean Bazaine is born in Paris in 1904. While preparing a literature degree, he is a student of the sculptor Landowsksi at the school of Fine-Arts in Paris. In 1930, the young artist is showing his work in group exhibitions with Fautrier, Puni (Pougny), and Goerg and Gromaire whom he befriends. His first personal exhibition is organized in 1932; Pierre Bonnard encouraged him.
Jean Bazaine visits for the first time Saint-Guénole in 1936; the sea and the light from the north acquire from now on a privileged place in his artistic vision. The same year (1936), he befriends with Jacques Villon. He takes part, the following year, in the important exhibition “L’art indépendent, Maîtres d’aujourd’hui” - “Independent Art, Masters of today” - (Petit-Palais, Paris). He is awarded the Blumenthal price in 1938.
In 1941, Bazaine becomes one of the organizers of an exhibition which marks the history of painting at the School of Paris: "Twenty young artists from French tradition"; this event is conceived as a provocation to the German occupant who had qualified “degenerated art” this type of expression. Until the end of the war, Bazaine often exhibits with Estève and Lapicque, while maintaining close relationships with painters such as Manessier, Singier, Gischia, Pignon or Moal. Bazaine now participates in major international events (Biennial Event of Venice, Carnegie Institute of Pittsburg, Biennial Event of Sao Paulo, Documenta in Kassel, etc..).
His first truly important personal exhibition is held in Paris in 1949, Bazaine shows paintings created between 1944 and 1949. His work then rejects appearance, transforming it lyrically sensitive by using a wide range of colors and by the harmonies of a great richness. The first retrospective of his work is being successively organized, in 1959, by Kunsthalle of Bern, Stedelijk Museum of Eindhoven and by the Museum of Amsterdam. His exhibitions, both personal and collective, continue steadily over time.
Jean Bazaine explores many ways of expression: painter with the gouache, painter in watercolours, engraver, lithographer. Jean Bazaine always continues an intense activity for work with monumental purposes: painter of paperboards of tapestries, paperboards of mosaics (church of Audincourt, UNESCO in Paris, ORTF, Palace of Luxembourg, etc) and paperboards of stained glasses (Church of ESA, castle of Lime, church of Audincourt, Villeparis, Saint-Severin church of Paris, cathedral of Saint-Dié, etc). He creates sets for theatre and collaborates in the adventure of the illustrated book (with friends such as André Frénaud, Raymond Queneau, Jean Tardieu, Eluard or others). Moreover, since 1934, Bazaine who remains throughout his life a man of culture punctuates his work of painter with written reflections on art and artists. His “Notes on the painting of today” (Ed. Floury, Paris, 1948) is a classic in the field of writings of painter, and is repeatedly translated and republished.
The painter Jean Bazaine dies in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine) in 2001.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Jean Bazaine, Vitraux et Mosaïques », Musée du vitrail, Ed. Benteli, 1965
  • « Bazaine », Jean Tardieu et autres, Ed. Maeght, Paris, 1975
  • « Jean Bazaine, Rétrospective », B. Dorival, Musée des Beaux-Arts Quimper, 1982
  • « Bazaine: Dessins 1931-1988 », Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 1988
  • « Bazaine », P. Cabanne et autres, Ed. Skira, Genève & CNAP, Paris, 1990
  • « Bazaine », Claire Stoullig, Ed. Albert Skira, Musée d'Art & d'Histoire, Fribourg, 1996
  • « Couleurs et mots », entretiens, Ed. Le Cherche Midi, Paris, 1997
  • « Bazaine », Jean-Pierre Greff, Ed. Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 2002
  • « Jean Bazaine, Hommages », Ed. Galerie Louis Carré & Cie, 2004
  • « Au Pays de Bazaine », Bernard Berrou, Editions Diabase, 2015
To read from the artist :
  • « Le temps de la peinture (1938-1989 », Ed. Aubier, Paris, 1990
  • « Entretiens avec Jean Bazaine : Couleurs et mots », Ed. Cherche Midi, 1997
Website :
No website dedicated to the artist.

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Art movements

+ SCHOOL OF PARIS / 1945-1960 / Jean Degottex, Georges Mathieu, Nicolas de Staël, etc.
+ LYRIC ART, ABSTRACT, TACHISM / 1950-1960 / Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher, etc.
+ SOCIAL REALISM / 1920-1950 / André Fougeron, Otto Griebel, Amédée de la Patellière, etc.
+ NON FIGURATIVE ART / 1942-1975 / Jean Bertholle, André Beaudin, Jeannie Dumesnil, Hanna Ben-Dov, Elvire Jan, Charles Lapicque, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover