Biographical Data
Born in Charenton, near Paris, in 1939. He lives and works in Maisons-Alfort, near Paris. Pierre Buraglio studies in l’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris (1959-1965). He takes part in the protests of May 1968 in the Atelier populaire des Beaux-Arts. After the May events he stops painting and becomes politically active, writing a great number of texts and working the rotary press in a printer’s (1969-1973). In 1974 he returns to artistic activity and will never abandon it again. His texts about art are published in 2007 (Écrits entre 1962 et 2007; Beaux-Arts de Paris les éditions).
Brief Chronology
During the first years of his creative work, Pierre Buraglio reflects on different aspects of painting: techniques, means, and materials (frame, color, canvas, surface, background and shape). He creates abstract series by putting together pieces of wood, packages and scraps of cloth: Agrafages (from cut up and reconstructed pieces of work 1966-1968), Camouflages (1966-1968) and Recouvrements (from old paintings, 1964). He exhibits Cadres (1974), Châssis (1975-1976) and Fenêtres (1975-1982); pieces selected, put together and presented as mock art objects. Later, he creates Assemblages (Assemblage de paquets de Gauloises bleues, 1978), Imprimés, Masquages, Montages and Caviardages in which he uses collage, quotations, etc. In Tamponnages he uses tampons and color pencils. In 1979 he creates the collection Dessins d’après, based on works by great artists of the past or of modern times, whose work he synthesizes from his point of view as “expressive vocabulary: strokes, intertwinings, hatchings, beams, comas” (Autour… de Poussin, 1996). Afterwards he paints or draws on wood, following the same principle, archetypal shapes (men, bathers, skulls), landscapes, and even doors and windows (Figure d’après… le baptême. Piero della Francesca, 2001). He designs the renovation and the liturgical decoration of the Chapelle Saint-Symphorien in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris (1991-2000).
P.L.T.
184 x 177,5 cm / 72,4 x 69,8 in.