Gérard Schlosser, who died on August 10 at the age of 91, was one of the starters of the Narrative Figuration Movement. A similar Figurative Movement also emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area. Figurative artists opposed abstract art that dominated in the 1950s. The works of Schlosser have much in common with those of Pop Art Porn: Bedroom Paintings of the American Artist Tom Wesselmann and Hilo Chen, which we examined here earlier. The leitmotif of his paintings is a close-up of a body part. Most frequently, Schlosser depicted the female breast as if occasionally exposed.
Fig. 1. Schlosser (instagram.com)
Fig. 2. Schlosser with his painting in 2013 (connaissancedesarts.com)
Fig. 3. He says people can’t laugh anymore
Like Radishes Better
Schlosser was born in Lille, 1931. His first specialization was silverware, which he studied at the Ecole des arts appliqués, in Paris. He also studied sculpture by himself and briefly attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Schlosser decided to devote himself to painting after watching a performance of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot (the premiere directed by Roger Blin in 1953). Some of the titles of his paintings refer to this famous play, for instance, one of his works (we haven't found it, unfortunately) is entitled J'aime mieux les radis (I like radishes better). It's a reference to one of the scenes from Waiting For Godot when Vladimir eats a radish taken out of his pocket. “In 1953, I attended the premiere of En attendant Godot at the Théâtre Babylone. There was a Giacometti tree on stage. An actor takes a radish from his pocket. This is a close-up. Telling with close-ups… that's what produced it: I have to start painting" (hatchikiangallery.com)
Fig. 4. Ils ne le diront pas, They won’t tell
Fig. 5. Depuis longtemps, For a long time (twitter.com)
Fig. 6. danielamargherita.wordpress.com
