Roger BISSIÈRE (1886-1964)

Roger Bissière was born in Villeréal, France in 1886 and died in Boissiérettes, France in 1964.

After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, and briefly attending the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he abandoned academic education. Disappointed with the teaching at these institutions and with the official Salons where he exhibited in 1910 and 1911, he decided to accept a position as a reporter for l’Opinion. Between 1916 and 1919 he contributed to newspapers and art journals, wrote texts for catalogues, and also the preface for the monograph on Braque published by l’Effort Moderne in Paris.

In 1920 he left his job as a report and returned to exhibiting, becoming a staunch defender of painting based on solid doctrine.

He became a member of the cubist group gathered at the gallery l’Effort Moderne. Post-war Cubism was characterised by a return to order, and continued to perpetuate the classical tradition. However modernist Cubism was, this development proved favorable to Bissière, who has always considered himself a follower of the French tradition (Ingres, Seurat, Corot). The human figure provided inspiration for numerous painting exercises, taking the form of peasants, comedians, acrobats, and his wife, Mousse. The archaic and decorative subjects of Deux jeunes femmes dans un intérieur, 1922, and Trois filles à marier, 1922-23, stand out from a fragmented, cubist-inspired background. In 1923 he participated in the Salon des Independents, and also in the first exhibition of the 4.e Group organised by the Galerie Druet, where he had a contract until 1937. The paintings exhibited at the Salon displayed a colourful and joyful sensuality, a kind of lyric praise of impressionist memory. This was the starting point for a series of new works, where the artist gave expression to his emotional and sensual side and his sense of communion with earth and nature, thus foreshadowing his mature work.

The post-war economic crisis changed the art market. Broken contracts with galleries left artists in precarious circumstances, though it also allowed them to develop informal research for their work.

Between 1927 and 1932, he paints mainly landscapes, attempting to destroy representation through the privileging of a material treatment of atmosphere. When figures are visible they are immersed in a play of texture and light (Paysage, 1925; Deux nus, 1937). His next works (Figure debout and Grande figure, 1937), reflect his ongoing investigations into cubism. This period is also characterised by a feeling of tragic and imminent catastrophe. The economic crisis and the Second World War forced him into reassing the works by artists who had violated the classical order (Grunewald, H. Bosch, Brueghel the Elder and El Greco). They inspired him in his series of the crucifixion and the descent from the cross.

The announcement of the war, in 1939, made him seek refuge with his family at his mother’s house in Boissièrettes. There, thanks to his separation from Paris art scene, he began to rethink his work. He abandoned painting for four years, and dedicated himself to agriculture and light manual work. His relationship with the rural world, solitude, and the world conflict served to deepen his introspection. Deprived of painting materials, Bissière turned to cloth to produce works. Exhibited at Galerie René Drouin, in Paris in 1947, they received a negative response from the public but Dubuffet’s explicit admiration. The tapestries, made with leftover cloths sewn and embroidered by Mousse, are the unequivocal affirmation of humanity’s new relationship with painting and with art (Soleil, 1946; Claire de lune, 1946; Chartres, 1947).

The post-war painting evokes a new sense of the real and of religion; it gives an account of a simple day-to-day existence, and alludes to a magical relationship with the divine. Diaries and votive offerings portray the man in his natural setting, where a painter’s work is done together with farm work. (La vache, 1944; the Boissièrette series, 1945; Deux bergers, 1946; François Assise, 1946; L’Ange de la cathédrale, 1946).

He suspended his work in 1948, in a state of despair brought about by the threat of imminent blindness. Fortunately he made a full recovery after glaucoma surgery. Not unrelatedly perhaps, the canvases of the 1950s reflect a renewed wonder with colour, light, and nature. The landscapes vibrate with lively tonalities, immersed in suggestive signs of real or imaginary boundaries (Composition jaune et vert, 1951; Rouge et vert, 1952; Croix du sud, 1952). Reality cannot be represented, painting is something else, Bissière repeated in his writings.
The following years were characterised by a series of important exhibitions in Europe, culminating in a retrospective at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, 1959.

In the year of his death, he was invited to exhibit in the French pavilion for the 32nd Venice Biennale, where he was given an honorable mention for the artistic importance of his work.

SANDRA SANTOS