Gérard Singer (1929 – 2007)

Born in 1929, Gerard Singer draws and paints since his age. He participated for the first time at the Salon des Independants of 1937 when he was only eight years, participation that will renew the following years. Refuge in the South during the war with his family, it does not stop its activity so far and draw the bush. At the Liberation, he enrolled in the studio of the Grande Chaumiere. He received his first art education.

He also joined the Communist Party. Echoing his political beliefs, Singer is a committed painter illustrating the socialist daily reality. It is thus part of the movement of socialist realism that wants to pass in a figurative painting, an implacable and objective truth of the daily life of the proletariat. The Turner and Keel reproduce on a large scale this reality of work.

This painting "Party Art" was at the center of controversy, especially on the occasion of the Salon d'Automne in 1950. Singer presents the large painting The 10 February 1950 in Nice showing workers throwing a V2 ramp into the sea. This was denounced as a work of political propaganda by the government of the time, which ordered it to be taken down by the police along with seven other canvases..

At the end of the years 1950

Gérard Singer turns away from figurative painting in contact with materials, electrical transformers and blocks the Saclay Atomic Center. Singer had obtained special permission to study the architecture of this first atomic laboratory France in summer 1958. These paintings are presented 1959 in the Galerie Lorenceau. Saclay will be a pivotal experience in the work of the artist. It allows him to evolve into an abstract construction of space and chain on his research on the subject and forms that gradually transform the sculptor painter. Singer Interest is
moves from the surface to the occupation of space.

Over the years 1960

Singer Gerard experimenting relief. It tests the materials, textures and discovers the power of expressiveness as many European artists of the time, such as Stael, Dubuffet or Tapiés. Moreover, personal aspirations Singer stir even the desire to rise. Passionate mountaineering, Singer builds his sculptures as a climbing wall : it rises through strata rises
successive structure, which initially a flat surface, takes the form of a sculpture. The monumental achievements he realizes testify to this rocky borrows. It designs in these years of wall reliefs spans for Orthez schools and Vincennes, and works in his first sculptures path : presentation Passage to the other side at the Musée Galliera (1965, blue sculpture 4 m 6 m), Roman Vane (1966) for the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations of the city of Marseille, the Abulomire (1968, presentation at the Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, 1971 implantation Vitry-sur-Seine). During these projects, Singer Gerard develops his technique : the use of expanded polystyrene mold that shapes negative in which it flows from white concrete or resin.

In 1967

It develops a new plastic processing method by means of thermoforming. It is also that year he met Dubuffet who became a close friend. He will be present throughout his career and will play a role in it
important. It is he who will present Singer Jean-François Jaeger, director of the Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, meeting which will mark the beginning of a long collaboration. In 1968, it presents at Galerie Jean-Bucher Abulomire who received a warm welcome criticism. Just as a few years later, in 1972, the Oliobulles. The poster for the exhibition itself is a manifesto or. The machine uses for these thermoforming Singer is in Ivry, at the sign of Vacuart. It allows from a negative mold - mold or without regarding the Bubulles - to print a vacuum relief pattern on a PVC plate.

Years 1970-1980

These are successful years during which Gerard Singer achieves its largest projects : the Ambulatory (1972-1976),
monumental ride blue resin in Evry, Project Grand midsole (1974) for the Esplanade de la Défense which will not be built.

From 1978 at 1982

The artist is dedicated to making the Cheminement de l'Isle-d'Abeau for the Lycée Saint-Bonnet. This connects by a concrete footbridge supported this rock formation characteristic of the school and the city. This project represents a decisive phase in Singer's fight
to show that a contemporary artist is capable of carrying out, and independently, a major architectural project.

Gérard Singer gains further notoriety with the Permuttant exhibition, landscaped device at the Galerie Jeanne-Bucher in 1983. She gets
a big impact in the press, questioning the role of sculpture in nature and in the city.

Finally, the career of the sculptor-architect culminates with the Canyoneaustrate.

This imposing fountain located in the extension of the Palais des Omnisport de Bercy in Paris marks the artist's achievement. The project, started in 1982, is inaugurated by Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, the 26 octobre
1988. It is a waterfall sculpture of 40 m aside, composed of a basin in the center of which there is a "canyon" formed on
rock strata on which water flows. Unlike traditional fountains which expel water through jets above the basin, le Canyoneaustrate
"Proposes itself as a lake cascading down a canyon to restore the liquid element to its vital and nurturing meaning", as Jean-Luc Daval explained in L'Aventure de la sculpture moderne.1

In 1990

Gérard Singer completes his work by focusing on a new mode of artistic production, computing, as a measurement and creation tool. In 1990, he presents at the Galerie Jeanne-Bucher his computer drawings which make an event. Jean-Luc Daval says Singer "is interested in the computer as it is for him another way artistically virgin reminiscence, where freedom is total. »2 "The computer allows it to turn
around its objects to enter the third dimension, to move by moving, to act on the color and light, of décadrer, to approach and away, juxtaposing the sequences ... "3

In 1991, Singer Gerard a stroke can continue research. He died in 2007, leaving his studio in the Rue Vaugirard the early works he had kept for him, his studies and projects for sculptures, and his latest works by
computer.

A sale of his paintings was suggested by his wife Claudette Singer in June 2016. This took place in the Galerie Les Échappées de l’Art.

http://galerielesechappeesdelart.com/souvenir-de-gerard-singer-1929-2007/