Jean-Pierre Cassigneul

(1935-)

Jean-Pierre Cassigneul’s figurative work is distinguished by his female portraits, which are an ode to women and exalt their beauty. His women – always the same, tall, slender, elegant, most often wearing a hat – are depicted in gardens, in the Bois de Boulogne, in Deauville, on the shores of Lake Leman. Cassigneul also painted still lifes of flowers and gardens. Color plays a central role in his approach, which, especially in his early years, was close to the painting of Van Dongen, in a form of expressionism.

Like virtually all ^{twentieth-century} artists, Cassigneul extended his activity beyond painting stricto sensu. He produced lithographs, illustrated books, designed tapestries (the first of which was produced by Atelier 3 in Paris in 1980), and a screen entitled Les Jardins du Luxembourg (1985), a distant echo of Pierre Bonnard’s 1894 work Promenade des nourrices, frise de fiacres (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). He has also worked in silk-screen printing, designing the sets and costumes for the ballet La Fille mal gardée for the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow (1993), created a stained-glass window, Le Jardin des délices, for the Shinagawa Prince Hotel in Japan, made in Chartres, in the workshops of Jean Loire (1994), and created a dinner service for the Sapporo Prince Hotel (2003).

Cassigneul entered the Académie Charpentier in 1954, before joining the École des Beaux-Arts the following year in the studio of painter Roger Chapelain-Midy.

Galerie Tivey-Faucon gave him his first one-man show in 1964. On this occasion, he met Kiyoshi Tamenaga, who became his dealer for Japan, where his paintings met with exceptional success, still very much alive today.

Another solo exhibition in 1968 at the Galerie Vital was decisive for the international dissemination of his work. It was there that Cassigneul met Wally Findlay, who became his dealer in the United States. Findlay exhibited in his gallery two years later in Palm Beach and then in New York. The same year, Cassigneul’s work was shown at the Mitsukoshi Gallery in Tokyo.

In Paris, the Bouquinerie de l’Institut (now Galerie de l’Institut) exhibited a selection of his works on paper on several occasions between 1985 and 1992. Cassigneul moved to Switzerland in 1993, where he still lives today. The following year saw the inauguration of the Izu Lake Ippeki Museum in Japan, where one hundred and fifty of the artist’s works are on permanent display.

In 2009, Galerie Tamenaga held a retrospective in Paris featuring some 50 paintings. Cassigneul had not shown his work in France since 1992.

Book illustrations

Joseph Kessel, Le Tour du malheur, 35 illustrations, Paris, éditions Lidis, 1964

Eugène Guillevic, Parc (poèmes), eight lithographs, Paris, éditions A.C. Mazo, 1976

Charles Baudelaire, Les Pièces condamnées, thirty lithographs, Paris, éditions Lidis, 1976

Eugène Guillevic, Regards (poèmes), eight lithographs, Paris, éditions A.C. Mazo, 1982

Françoise Sagan, Toquades, eight lithographs, Paris, éditions A.C. Mazo-Lebouc, 1991