Gustave Singier Biography
Gustave Singier (Comines-Warneton, 11 February 1909 – Paris, 5 May 1984) was a Belgian painter, engraver and decorator, naturalized French in 1947. From Warneton, a village in Belgian western Flanders, Gustave Singier moved to Paris in 1919. From 1923 to 1926 he attended courses at the École Boulle and from 1927 to 1939 he worked as a designator. In 1936, the meeting with Charles Walch was the occasion to come into contact with the Parisian artistic world. In 1939 he met Alfred Manessier, his neighbor, and became friends with Elvire Jan and Jean Le Moal. At the outbreak of war he left for the Belgian front and was sent to Bagnols-sur-Cèze. Demobilized, he worked in his father's cabinet-making shop from 1941 to 1944. Signature of Gustave Singier The opportunity to emerge came with the exhibition Vingt jeunes peintres de tradition française, organized in 1941 by Jean Bazaine, which was the first exposition of the Parisian avant-garde during the German occupation. In 1944 Gustave Singier took refuge in Manessier's house in Perche County. At the "Salon de Mai", of which he was one of the founders, he exhibited in 1945. He frequented the poet Jean Lescure and illustrated his writings. In 1949, he had his first solo exhibition at the "Billiet-Caputo" gallery. From 1951 to 1954 he taught at the Académie Ranson, from 1967 to 1978, at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, where he had Michel Four and Riccardo Cavallo as students. He was welcomed as a member of the Société des peintres-graveurs français and was one of the founders of the "Salon of Toulon" in 1975 and of the "Salon of Vitry-sur-Seine" in 1976. In 1956 the poet Claude Aveline asked his painter friends to draw or paint the Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas, the title of the poem he composed in 1950 and then translated into 55 languages. Among the 108 artists who responded to the invitation was Gustave Singier. He designed cartoons for tapestries and tapestries, for stained glass windows and mosaics; he created sets and costumes for Jean Vilar's Théâtre national populaire and for the Opéra de Paris. He illustrated books, with engravings, drawings and lithographs. Died in Paris, he was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. Singier was one of the twentieth-century French artists presented at the Luxembourg Palace (Senate of France), in the exhibition L'envolée lyrique, Paris 1945-1956 (April-August 2006).
