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Raphaël Toussaint (pseudonym of Jacques de la Croix; born 25 April 1937, in La Roche-sur-Yon), is a French painter residing in the Vendée department. Landscape designer, he practices “poetic reality”.
Raphaël Toussaint | |
|---|---|
 Raphaël Toussaint in his studio in 2001. | |
| Born | Jacques de la Croix April 25, 1937 |
| Education | self-taught |
| Known for | Painting and Lithography |
| Awards | Médaille de la Ville de Paris, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, Prix Germain David-Nillet |
| Website | www |
His motto as a painter is:
"Knowing how to see, knowing how to perceive, knowing how to design"[1]
Biography
editIn 1956, while studying classical singing, Jacques de la Croix, the future Raphaël Toussaint, met the one who became his wife in 1959. As a result, he met René Robin: the father of his future wife who ran a store in La Roche-sur-Yon which later became the Robin gallery. For Raphaël Toussaint, this meeting was a determining element that influenced the course of his life.
"The genesis of this rebirth [is] due to the meeting of another Yonnais, René Robin, director of the art gallery that bears his name"; explains journalist Bertrand Illegems.[2]
“Without his father-in-law, the irreplaceable René Robin, always present in his works, who trained and supported so many painters (Albert Deman, Henry Simon, Paul Dauce, Joël Dabin, Roger Ducrot ...), Raphaël Toussaint would not have become what he is today, a magician of beauty in the service of truth”, writes journalist Hervé Louboutin.[3]
Called to do his military service, it was in 1957 that he embarked in civilian clothes on the Sidi Bel Abbès II bound for Oran (Algeria) where he disembarked on 13 July. He studied at the Nouvion military camp near Oran at the 21st RTA. On 16 November, he was assigned to the 2nd RI 3rd company, at "ferme 35" in the Aumale region south of Algiers. Seriously wounded during the night of 8–9 April, he was repatriated to France in May and permanently retired as a major war invalid.[4]
After this injury, Jacques de la Croix could no longer continue studying the classical singing he had practised since his adolescence. His career as a singer halted, he decided to devote himself entirely to painting, helped by his father-in-law, René Robin, and he changed his name to become Raphaël Toussaint. With René Robin, he came into direct contact with the landscape and began his first period. His painting Holidays in Saint Raphaël would determine the profile of what became the definitive expression of his art.[5] René Robin directed him towards naive art, because he felt that his vocation is there thanks to his patience and meticulousness. Until 1970, he worked under the secrecy of anonymity in order to make sure that his choice to devote himself entirely to painting was not an adventure without a future.[6] It was in 1965 that he began his first exhibitions in different galleries and that he was selected the following year to participate in the Salon “Comparaisons” at the Grand Palais (Paris).[7] A few years passed where he affirmed his talent and in 1971 he was appointed Member of the Salon d'Automne. “Be congratulated and thanked, your work is beneficial, it carries within it the true values of life, the quiet and firm certainty that happiness is in simplicity, and not in money which is a lure. To build a work such as yours, in our times of anguish and iron, dear Raphaël Toussaint, is to bring us closer to the angels ... ” declares Édouard Georges Mac-Avoy, the president of Salon d'Automne, in 1990.[8]
His life as a professional and official painter then came to light. It was in 1973 that he formalized his pseudonym Raphaël Toussaint by means of a notarial deed. In a publication in 2004, the art collector and critic Henri Griffon considers him a symbol of this movement of expression of modern primitive. “He is not an imitator, nor a follower, he is Toussaint. On the walls of a gallery, the informed eye will recognize the invoice of a great master ” , thus estimates Henri Griffon.[9]
Paris-Grand Palais-Exposition 1982 “The Genius of the Naive”
editThe following year, at the Salon de la Nationale des Beaux Arts, he was appointed Associate by President François Baboulet.
He exhibited his painting, On a beautiful winter morning. This painting was stolen from the Grand Palais in Paris during the Salon de la Nationale des Beaux Arts and never found.[10]
To pay tribute to his Mentor René Robin, whom he includes in all his paintings, Raphaël Toussaint publishes a wax seal which is affixed to the back of each of his works as a second signature.
Wanting to give a new dimension to his career, he wrote and implemented in 1990 a work of art The very rich hours of Raphaël Toussaint,[11] prefaced by various personalities from the world of the arts including Paul Guth.[12] The latter writes: "Raphaël Toussaint, a naive painter? ... A problem that bothers him. In France, country of labels, we stuck this one on the overcoat. And to me too. Him, in painting, me in literature for my romantic cycle of the Naive. Labels twins. Did this naive title bother you? he asks me. I answer for both of us: yes and no. Naive does not mean silly, beta, idiotic. Naive comes from the Latin word nativus, as on the day of his birth. The naive is the one who is born every day, and the world with him. It has the spirit of childhood, one of the treasures of Saint Francis of Assisi".[13] He exhibited in numerous salons and galleries in France but also in particular in the United States (in Texas and Florida.[14] In Paris, he exhibited at Galerie 93 du Faubourg Saint-Honoré for twenty-five years, between 1965 and 1991 (gallery closed).[15] Locally, the Vendée department organized a major retrospective for his thirty years of painting (1964–1994). In 2001, the Sainte-Croix des Sables-d'Olonne museum, opens its doors to him for a major exhibition "Landscape or a certain regard". He regularly takes part in the Parisian Salons of which he is a member.,[16]
Works
edit
Awards
edit- 2000 : Médaille de la ville de Paris[17]
- 2004 : Chevalier des Arts et Lettres[17]
- 2010 : Prix Francis Davis Millet[18]
Exhibitions
edit| Year | Venue | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Biennale de la Loire-Atlantique | La Baule | Collective exhibition |
| 1966 | Galerie René Robin | La Roche-sur-Yon | Individual exhibition |
| 1968 | Salon Comparaisons | Paris | Collective exhibition |
| 1968-1969 | Galerie Jannel | Paris | Permanent exhibit |
| 1968-1980 | Galerie 93 et par le monde | Paris | Permanent exhibit |
| 1971 | Salon d'automne | Paris | Collective exhibition – Becomes a member of the Salon d'Automne |
| 1972-1979 | Galerie Saint Dominique | Lyon | Permanent exhibit |
| 1974 | Salle de l'Ardoise verte | Beauvoir-sur-Mer | Ten years of painting – Individual retrospective exhibition |
| 1975 | Salle municipale Levallois-Perret | Nanterre | Collective exhibition - World Fair of Naive Painting |
| 1979-1986 | Phillips gallery | Palm Beach-Dallas-Houston | Permanent exhibit |
| 1980-1981 | Galerie Simon Chaput | Les Sables-d'Olonne et Parthenay | Permanent exhibit |
| 1981 | Musée | La Roche-sur-Yon | Exhibition « Figures » |
| 1982 | Musée | La Roche-sur-Yon | Individual exhibition - « Chemins - 50 years of painting and homage to the Salon yonnais » |
| 1982 | Grand Palais | Paris | Salon of Independent Artists "The genius of the naive" |
| 1982 | Phillips gallery | Palm Beach | "Two masters of primitive school" |
| 1983 | Nationale des beaux-arts | Paris | Exhibition and becomes a member |
| 1983 | Centre Neptune | Nantes | Exhibition "Air and Space" |
| 1983-1985 | Galerie « Arts Lésigny » | Lésigny | Permanent exhibit |
| 1984 | Galerie « Arts Lésigny » | Lésigny | Christmas Salon (guest of honor) |
| 1984 | Musée des Beaux-Arts | La Rochelle | Seventh Fine Arts Fair (guest of honor) |
| 1984-1986 | Salon International d'Art naïf (S.I.A.N) | Paris | Collective exhibition (see) Grand Palais |
| 1985 | Galerie « Café de la paix » | Paris | International pictorial meetings, "A moment of peace" |
| 1986-1991 | Galerie 93 | Paris | Permanent exhibit |
| 1988 | Salle de la Martelle | Le Poiré-sur-Vie | 1st painting salon, (Raphaël Toussaint and friends) |
| 1989 | Galerie le Vieux château | Angers | Salon d'Automne - Collective exhibition |
| 1990 | Salle de la mairie | Cholet | Collective exhibition - "30 contemporary painters" |
| 1990 | Peinture murale | Le Poiré-sur-Vie | The mayor Léon Darnis commissions a 150 square metres (1,600 sq ft) mural painting to complete in the heart of the city |
| 1991-1994 | Galerie cannoise | Cannes | Individual exhibition |
| 1992 | Nolan-Rankin gallery | Houston | Collective exhibition |
| 1992 | Musée | Noirmoutier | Jacques Oudin, senator of the Vendée, commissioned a painting for the museum |
| 1992 | Trésor public | La Roche-sur-Yon | Exhibition at the General Treasury |
| 1992 | Crédit Mutuel | La Roche-sur-Yon | Exhibition on lithography |
| 1993-1994 | Galerie Colette Dubois | Paris | Collective exhibition |
| 1993 | Mairie du 9eme arr. | Paris | Third Biennial “Arts without time-Dreamlands” guest of honor |
| 1994 | Hôtel du dépt | La Roche-sur-Yon | "30 years of painting across the Vendée" Individual exhibition |
| 1997-1998 | Galerie du Mas d'Artigny | Saint-Paul-de-Vence | Individual exhibition |
| 1999 | Carrousel du Louvre | Paris | Exhibition of his painting "Hommage au Vendée Globe" at the Fine Arts salon |
| 1999 | Salon d'automne | Paris | Collective exhibition - Obtains the “Arts-Sciences-Lettres” vermeil medal. |
| 1999-2000 | Galerie du Dauphin | Honfleur-Megève-Courchevel | Collective exhibition |
| 2000 | Salon Comparaisons | Paris | Collective exhibition |
| 2000 | Salon d'automne | Paris | Collective exhibition - Receives the silver cross of "French Merit and Dedication" |
| 2000 | Salon d'automne | Paris | Collective exhibition - Receives the medal of the city of Paris. |
| 2001 | Musée de l'Abbaye Saint-Croix | Les Sables-d'Olonne | Individual exhibition 31 March – 17 June "Landscapes, a certain look" |
| 2001 | Centre culturel | Challans | Arts week-end on the theme: lithography - guest of honour |
| 2001 | Musée de la poste | Paris | Exhibition: The most beautiful illustrated envelopes from 1750 to the present day |
| 2001 | Carrousel du Louvre | Paris | Exhibition Salon de la Nationale des Beaux Arts |
| 2004 | Galerie d'Art Élysée | Paris | Collective exhibition |
| 2005 | Théâtre Millandry | Luçon | Individual exhibition – Discover lithography |
| 2006-2007 | Galerie Villa Bellartéa | Biarritz – Anglet | Individual exhibition |
| 2006 | Salon Comparaisons Grand Palais | Paris | Collective exhibition |
| 2007 | Galerie | Brie-Comte-Robert | “Christmas colours” exhibition - Guest of honour |
| 2008 | Conseil général de la Vendée | La Roche-sur-Yon | Collective exhibition "The Vendeans and the sea, human adventures" |
| 2009 | Galerie du Sénéchal | Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne | Gallery opening - Guest of honour |
| 2010 | Carrousel du Louvre | Paris | Collective exhibition in the Salon des Beaux Arts from December 16 to 19 under the high patronage of the President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy. Raphaël Toussaint is awarded the Germain David-Nillet prize for his painting Hiver sur un domaine Vendéen.[18] |
| 2010 | Lexus Gallery | La Roche-sur-Yon | Lexus Gallery presents in December, the exhibition of Raphaël Toussaint "Féerie de Noël" with his painting Vouvant - La Tour Mélusine - La valse des patineurs (The skaters' waltz).[19] |
| 2010 | Librairie Siloë | La Roche-sur-Yon | Presentation during the month of May of the painting by Raphaël Toussaint, Beatification of Pope John Paul II (Lourdes. La Grotte de Massabielle), H.S.B. 27 centimetres (11 in) x 35 centimetres (14 in) |
| 2015 | Hôtel du département | La Roche-sur-Yon | Exhibition at the Departmental Council of the Vendée - Golden Jubilee: 50 Years of Painting - Hôtel du Département from 4 May to 3 July 2015 – La Roche-sur-Yon |
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Written works
edit- Chemins-50 ans de peinture en Vendée (in French) (Imprimerie graphique de l'Ouest ed.). Le Poiré-sur-Vie: Dominique Giles. 1982. pp. 12, 77. Hommage to the Salon Yonnais - Municipal museum of La Roche-sur-Yon
- Raphaël Toussaint (August 1990). Les très riches heures de Raphaël Toussaint. Menthon-Saint-Bernard: éditions Les Sillons du Temps. ISBN 2-907077-06-6. Book of art.
- Raphaël Toussaint (October 1994). 30 ans de peinture. éditions Cénomane. On the occasion of a retrospective exhibition at the Conseil général de la Vendée
- Raphaël Toussaint (March 2001). Catalogue de l'exposition au Musée Sainte Croix les Sables d'Olonne.
- Raphaël Toussaint (2001). Paysages ou un certain regard : Raphaël Toussaint (in French). Les Sables-d'Olonne: éditions Offset Cinq. ISBN 2-908752-10-7. Paysages ou un certain regard.
- Raphaël Toussaint (2001). Quatre saisons en Vendée (in French). éditions Offset cinq. ISBN 2-908752-08-5. Illustrated agenda
- Raphaël Toussaint (November 2002). Châteaux et Hauts Lieux de Vendée. éditions Offset Cinq. ISBN 2-908752-33-6.
- Raphaël Toussaint; Antoine Richard (October 2000). Musique sur douze toiles de Raphaël Toussaint (in French). éditions Souffle et poésie. Poems
References
edit- ^ "Animation d'introduction" (in French). Retrieved 6 June 2010.
- ^ Illégem's, Bertrand (December 1979). "Raphaël Toussaint, le soleil en décembre" [Raphaël Toussaint, the sun in December]. Presse-Océan, édition Vendée (in French). p. 4.
- ^ Louboutin, Hervé (November 1994). "La ronde vendéenne". Vendée Matin/Presse-Océan. p. 7.
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint 1990, pp. 34–35
- ^ Daniel, Alain (September 1984). "Raphaël Toussaint- la perfection dans l'art naïf". Ouest-France, édition Vendée (in French). p. 3.
- ^ Poinsignon, Annie (July 1986). "Raphaël Toussaint, peintre naïf et heureux de l'être". Ouest-France, édition Vendée (in French). p. 8.
- ^ Cortella, P.-M. (7 December 1966). "Raphaël Toussaint - Un naïf à la galerie Robin". Ouest-France, édition Vendée (in French). p. 2.
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint 1990, p. 13
- ^ Les têtes des Pays de la Loire [The heads of the Pays de La Loire] (in French), 2004, p. 510
- ^ Nationale des Beaux Arts - Grand Palais Paris (16 June 1983). "Déclarations de vols" [Declaration of theft]. Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot (in French). No. 2601.
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint 1990
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint 1990, pp. 33–45
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint 1990, p. 35
- ^ Daniel, Alain (23 May 1985). "Comment la Vendée fait la conquête de l'Amérique" [How the Vendée is conquering America]. Ouest-France, édition Vendée (in French). p. 4.
- ^ Hutin, François-Régis (25 May 1989). "Un chantre vendéen de l'Art naïf expose à paris". Ouest-France, édition Vendée (in French). p. 5.
- ^ Moinard, Laurence (3 April 2001). "Mer et paysages à Sainte Croix". Ouest-France, édition Vendée. p. 5.
- ^ a b Toussaint, Raphaël. "Événements" (in French). raphael-toussaint.com. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ a b Raphaël Toussaint (18 December 2010). "Salon de la Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris". raphael-toussaint.fr.
- ^ Raphaël Toussaint (24 December 2010). "Lexus Gallery, la Roche sur Yon". raphael-toussaint.fr.
Bibliography
edit- Dictionnaire Benezit (8 February 1999). Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous (in French). Vol. 13. éditions Gründ. p. 760. ISBN 978-2-7000-3010-5.
- Gavelle, Madeleine (1 January 1977). Les peintres naïfs-Les illuminés de l'instinct (in French). Paris: éditions Fillipachi. p. 68. ISBN 2-85018-086-6. Texte and photo of tableau Le Bouquet au chat by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Cluzel, Anne; Mory, Frédérique (2004). Vendée secrète (in French). Nantes: éditions Siloé-Kerdoré. p. 209. ISBN 2-84231-276-7. The face of a landscaper from the Vendée through his works Les mariés, La route du bonheur and Virginie ou l'enfant à la marguerite by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collectif (July 1991). "Revue de l'Art figuratif contemporain". Art Actualité Magazine. pp. 46–48. ISSN 1146-1276. From the art of the miniature painting to the art of the monumental as seen through the works Les mariés du Poiré-sur-Vie, La peinture murale du Poiré-sur-Vie and L'église de Saint Etienne du Brioullet by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collectif (June 1991). "Revue des Arts". Actualités des Arts. No. 5. pp. 64–65. ISSN 1157-4712. Texts and photos of the works Maison de Maître et le vieux Four à chaux and Le puy du Fou sous la neige by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collection des Arts (2000). Art galerie (in French and Japanese). Translated by Yukitoshi Yakamoto. édition japonaise. p. 184.Texts and photos of the works Le Mont des alouettes au champ de blé de Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collection des Arts (2001). Art galerie (in French and Japanese). Translated by Yukitoshi Yakamoto. édition japonaise. p. 176. ISBN 4900011371. Texts and photos of the work La Tour d'Arundel – Les Sables d'Olonne by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collection des Arts (2002). Art galerie (in French and Japanese). Translated by Yukitoshi Yakamoto. édition japonaise. p. 183. ISBN 490162301X. Texts and photos of the work Saint-Mars-des-Près sous la neige by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Collection des Arts (2003). Art galerie (in French and Japanese). Translated by Yukitoshi Téramoto. édition japonaise. pp. 184–185. ISBN 4901623028. Texts and photos of the works Maison de Maître et le vieux Four à chaux and Le puy du Fou sous la neige by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Barrer, Patrick-F; Bigot, Stéphanie; Lhotis, Agnès (1992). Quand l'Art du 20e était conçu par des inconnus : Histoire du salon d'automne de 1903 à nos jours (in French). Montreuil: éditions Arts et Images du monde. pp. 194–195 & 282. Text and photo of the work La vieille église de Pouzauges en Vendée by Raphaël Toussaint.
- Dubois, Jacques (April 1995). Vingt grandes signatures contemporaines (in French). Paris: éditions du Chêne vert. pp. 134–136. Texts and photos of the works Vendanges au Château de la Preuille and Le Château du Puy du Fou sous la neige by Raphaël Toussaint.
External links
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