Roger-Edgar Gillet French, 1924-2004

Born 1924, Paris, France;  died 2004, Saint-Suliac, France.

Gillet studied at the École Boulle in Paris from 1939 to 1944 and trained under Maurice Brianchon at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. Initially painting with a distinctly abstract aesthetic, Gillet associated with European lyrical abstraction, which was also referred to as "informal art" or "Seconde École de Paris."

Gillet's first solo exhibition occurred in 1953 at Galerie Craven, which had been recently opened by a photographer, John Craven. Following an exhibition at the prestigious Galerie de France, Gillet received the Fénéon Prize in 1954 and the Catherwood Prize shortly thereafter, which granted him the opportunity to study in the United States. During his grant, Gillet first saw the works of Jackson Pollock, which influenced his already expressive artwork. He returned to Paris to exhibit work at Galerie Ariel as well as the Galerie de France, where he had three solo exhibitions between 1959 and 1963. 

​When Gillet turned to figuration in the 1960s, humanity became the central focus of his paintings. He produced works in series named after the kinds of characters he portrayed, including Les Poux, Les Juges, and Les Musiciens. As observed by the critic and art historian, Gérard Xuriguera, "a singular tone characterizes the work of Roger-Edgar Gillet. Passing from a materialistic abstraction to a suggestive figuration, not far from the fantastic of Ensor on certain occasions, it unwinds a suppressed aggressiveness, haunted by familiar demons: tragicomic characters, both insolent and timid, who under their derisory cast-offs inhabit places animated by a subtle turbulence. The colors are fine, chosen, the work has allure, without exasperation." 

​In 1987, Gillet had a major retrospective at the Centre National d'Arts Plastique in Paris. In recent years, his paintings have been exhibited at in Construire une collection (2018) at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes and De Tiépolo à Richter (2018) at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Bruxelles, Recent Acquisitions of the Cabinet d'art graphique (2018), and Galeries du XXe siècle (2019) at the Centre Pompidou.  His work is included in the collection of the Musee d'Art Modern, Paris, the Royal Museum of Modern Art in Brussels, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, and the São Paulo Museum of Art, among numerous others around the world.