Gérard Fromanger, life-size silhouettes

Born in 1939 in Pontchartrain, near Paris, Gérard Fromanger was an empathetic artist committed to his time: ‘The anguish is global: time, money, the market’, he explained a few years ago at an exhibition. Here’s a brief look at his artistic career, accompanied by a selection of works to help you discover his world.

Painting life in red!

The name Gérard Fromanger conjures up a series of motifs, figures and events that form part of the history of post-war France. It’s a story that begins with a friendship with Jacques Prévert, followed by May 68, with its red silhouettes, urban passers-by and play on colours, a film with Jean-Luc Godard, and writings with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Félix Guattari… In short, he is a key figure in the figuration of art. in short, he is a key figure in narrative figuration.

The members of Figuration Narrative are not bound by any manifesto, but they share a common desire – in reaction to abstract art – to return to painting as a narrative, however trivial, however committed. Their works have often taken on an aesthetic, political and societal accent in a France shaken by the Algerian and Vietnam wars and the May 1968 crisis.

In 1964, at a group exhibition when he was not yet a household name, ‘my painting was put in the toilet’, recalls Gérard Fromanger. ‘It was there that Giacometti, half-God on earth, saw and loved my painting. I introduced myself. Art history is a relay race. If you don’t take the baton, you’re not in the race’.

During May 1968, he was heavily involved in the Atelier populaire des Beaux-Arts, which produced hundreds of mural posters and slogans to accompany the student and worker struggles.

Gérard Fromanger uses the camera to take pictures without any deliberate point of view, without any special framing, ‘images taken like film from the anonymous movement of what is happening’ in the words of Michel Foucault. He considers the friendship of poets, philosophers, writers, painters and sculptors, film-makers, musicians and architects to be the driving force behind his creative process.

Although Gérard Fromanger’s medium was painting, his approach was resolutely graphic.

Colour plays an important role in his work. Colour is lively, simple, full and luminous. It seems to express the dreams and passions that contrast with the greyness and realism of the world. ‘I very quickly chose the spectrum of colours as my alphabet,’ he says.

The Centre Pompidou, which has thirty-six works by the artist in its collection, devoted a major retrospective exhibition to him in 2016. This thematic tour highlighted the duality at the heart of Gérard Fromanger’s art: a passion for painting and a concern for the world.

A red half-sphere provided a mischievous filter through which to view his work, as if to make his famous red silhouettes disappear with a wave of his magic wand.

Gérard Fromanger, our neighbour…

For the record, Graphéine’s old offices were located at the same address as Gérard Fromanger’s studio. Sometimes we’d do him a few favours: ‘Hey young people, do you know how to install my email on my computer?’.

Below are a few images of our courtyard, inhabited for an afternoon by anonymous visitors. These banal silhouettes will naturally evoke the vector silhouettes that have helped out more than one graphic designer in need of images. Since 1971 (long before Illustrator was invented!), Gérard Fromanger has been making the banal blush… as if to fight against it. A leitmotiv that would be the start of a long series of paintings… and now sculptures!

A short video in which he presents his work.