Cubist painting / tableau by Gilbert Thevenot

Gilbert Thevenot (1921-2018), oil on canvas, signed on reverse

Measures 117 x 81 cm

Fine Art

To be picked up in Switzerland

Gilbert Thévenot was born on 4 October 1921 in Auxerre (Yonne), where he spent his childhood. His family moved to Dreux when he was around ten years old. During a jostle, he lost the motor skills in his right arm. The medical profession advised him to draw to test and strengthen his wrist. This rehabilitation led to a passion for drawing and his artistic vocation.

His first works were inspired by the wooded landscapes and riversides of Burgundy. The difficult period of the Occupation prompted the artist to join the Paris City Council to supervise the transfer of works to various museums. This brought him into contact with many works of art, and he admired one in particular that made a lasting impression on him, Bonnard's Déjeuner.

From the 1960s onwards, installed in the new studio on his property in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Gilbert Thevenot initiated new fields of artistic exploration. In particular, he produced a series of preparatory drawings as part of a new research project centred on the interaction between shapes and colours, which he pursued throughout the 1970s. He worked on new geometric and abstract subjects and new techniques, both inspired by free abstraction. He also incorporated and reworked the Pointillist heritage in large-format non-figurative works. From a technical point of view, Thevenot experimented with a thicker paste, the material taking on volume thanks to the addition of sand in its preparation and a technique of superimposing pictorial layers playing on the relief of the material. He also adopts a gestural style that, beyond any explanation, appeals to the emotions.

Thevenot, who liked to define himself as a craftsman in the noblest sense of the term, is continuing his experiments and research into the balance between volume, colour and form.

He is today a recognized artist, having exposed in prestigious art galleries worldwide.