Jean-Claude Fourneau


Jean-Claude Fourneau was a French painter, who was close to the surrealist movement.
He played the role of Bishop Cauchon in Robert Bresson's film The Trial of Joan of Arc.
WWW jcfourneau.com

Biography

His mother was a descendant of, restorer of the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris; of Juliette Adam, founder of a French paper, La Nouvelle Revue, and muse of Léon Gambetta and the spiritual mother of Pierre Loti. She was the daughter of Paul Segond, pioneer in the field of surgical gynaecology.
His father, Ernest Fourneau, was the founder of French medicinal chemistry.
Jean-Claude Fourneau was a painter influenced by both classicism and surrealism. He was first noticed by André Salmon at Fourneau's show at the Jeanne Castel Gallery in 1932. He continued exhibiting there until 1948.
Claude Roger-Marx compared his drawings to those of a medium and appreciated their meticulousness: "The detail in Jean-Claude Fourneau's drawings gives us a sense of the infinite Fascinating in the power and sensitivity that every stroke of his brush conveys." For the literary character of his work, the critic quoted the artist himself: "I cannot conceive of a man painting who has no culture. I do not distinguish between painting and poetry, they both strive towards the same goal."
Fourneau soon specialised in portraiture and built himself a solid reputation. Oriane de La Panouse, the countess of Paris, the Harcourt, Brantes, Faucigny-Lucinge, Seillière, Broglie, Pourtalès, Maillé, Montesquiou, Wendel families were amongst his clients.
An intimate circle of people supported his work, leading François Pluchart to state in the review Combat during the André Weil Gallery show in 1963: "The Parisian fashion and intellectual circle has found its painter".
During 1961, he took the role of Bishop Cauchon in Robert Bresson's film The Trial of Joan of Arc.
A show in Casablanca in 1954 made him known in Morocco, where he lived for several years. He painted the portraits of Lalla Malika, the sister of King Hassan II, of Lalla Lamia, his step sister, of Karim Lamrani, his prime minister, of General Oufkir, and other members of the Moroccan Royal Court.
Claude Rivière stated that Fourneau was the opposite of being a fashionable painter: "A great admirer of Antonin Artaud, of Paulhan, and of Aragon, the artist, with a fervour born of all the existential interstices due to his being, will first and foremost clash with his model. He dispossesses him of his own myths so that they may be recreated in the dimensions he wants to affirm."
Jean Paulhan asked: "By what means is it given to J.-C. Fourneau to have at his disposal both such abundance and such harshness?"
Fourneau appeared in a photograph of surrealist artists gathered at the Café Cyrano in 1953, and André Breton mentioned him as being part of the group.
Breton was a form of tutor to Fourneau, for whom he had much affection and confirmed the influence of surrealism in its literary and artistic form in his work.
On his return to Paris in 1968, Jean-Claude Fourneau resumed portrait painting, and his last exhibition was held in 1976.

Work

Portrait of Andrée Seillière, oil on canvas, 1942 Portrait of Josée de Chambrun, oil on canvas, 1947 Portrait of Felix Yusupov, oil on canvas, 1951 Portrait of Agnès Bourgois, oil on plywood, 1953 Portrait of Général Catroux, oil on canvas, 1955 Portrait of Céleste Albaret, oil on canvas, 1957 Portrait of Princess Lalla Malika of Morocco, oil on canvas, 1958 Portrait of Jeanne-Marie de Broglie, oil on canvas, 1958 Portrait of Jean Paulhan, oil on plywood, 1964 Portrait of Dominique Aury, oil on Isorel, 1965 Portrait of Diane de France, oil on plywood Portrait of Karl de Würtemberg, oil on canvas Portrait of Anne-Aymone Giscard d’Estaing, oil on canvas, 1969

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Exhibitions with others

  • 1932 : Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris
  • 1933 : Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris
  • 1936 : Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris
  • 1938 : Galerie Montaigne, Paris
  • 1939 : Salon des Tuileries, Paris
  • 1946 : Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris
  • 1947 : Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris
  • 1949 : Galerie du Siècle, Paris