Alfred Manessier was a non-figurative

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

 French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai

Salon de Mai

The Salon de Mai is a French group of artists which formed in a café in place du Palais Royal in Paris in October 1943 during the German occupation of France. It was founded in opposition to Nazi ideology and its condemnation of degenerate art...

.

Biography

Manessier was born among fishers and masons in the Picardy province of Northern France. There was a family precedent for creative work, as the grandfather was a decorative stonemason while his father and uncle had studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts at Abbeville. The "father gave the young man permission to go to Paris on condition that he studied architecture, which was a safer occupation than that of painter. It was not until his father, then a wholesale wine merchant in Amiens, suddenly died that he was able to changeover" to his preferred art studies. He had enrolled in architecture in 1929, switched to art with Roger Bissiere

Roger Bissière

Roger Bissière was a French artist who painted in the abstract Tachisme style. He was born in Villeréal, Lot-et-Garonne, and died in Boissièrettes...

 at Academie Ranson in 1935 just prior to the father's death in 1936.

In 1937 at the Paris International Exposition, the French government appointed the Sonia and Robert Delaunay to represent avant-garde art in Paris transportation centers such as Air Palace and Railways Palace. The couple was given the task to employ and reside with 50 unemployed artists for March and April to create a substantial project of 19000 square feet (1,765.2 m²) of artwork. Among the artists were Bissiere, Jean Bertholle

Jean Bertholle

Jean Bertholle was a French painter of the new Paris School....

, and Manessier, who worked on four murals. The following year he married painter Therese Simonnet. In 1939 Manessier was called into military conscription, as a technical draftsman. In 1940, expecting the birth of his son, he found work as a farmhand to support the growing family but by 1941 he returned to Paris to exhibit in the Gallery Braun show "20 Young Painters" that ushered into France the non-figurative movement. Despite the abstract style centered in what the occupying Germans deemed "degenerate" modes, and despite Manessier's teaching at the anti-authority and anti-indoctrination organization Young France, the painter was not censored or molested The Young France organization prepared youth for work at the end of the German Occupation, with a teaching staff that also included Jean Bazaine, Jean Vilar

Jean Vilar

Jean Vilar was a French man of the theatre, who created in 1947 the Avignon theatre festival.After he gave up his literature studies, in 1932 he followed in Paris a course of philosophy of Alain and the theatre courses of Charles Dullin...

, Jean Desailly

Jean Desailly

Jean Desailly was a French actor. He was a member of the Comédie-Française from 1942 – 1946, and later participated in about ninety movies.Desailly was married to the French actress Simone Valère....

, Andre Clement.

Manessier left teaching in 1943 for painting full time. During this year he made a 3-day visit to the Trappist monastery in Orne. Demoralized by the Occupation and war, at the monastery he was deeply moved by the ancient garb and art, chants and worship, rhythms of work and silence by the monks. "I felt profoundly the cosmic link between sacred chanting and the world of nature all around. These men who sang were perhaps a little out of touch with the world but there was truth in their relationship with nature" he recalled. "If we had the evangelical purity of the Primitives, if we could look at nature with all innocence of love, then perhaps we could depict the sacred as they did. But we are men of this century: broken, exploded." Thus began the fertile period of abstract painting: "mosaic-like patterns, luminous colors often supported by a heavy black grid."

Between paintings, he soon began to explore other mediums for expression. In 1945 his daughter was born, and the 34 year old Manessier was commissioned to produce costumes and sets for Marie-Anne Victoire production at Studio des Champs-Élysées. In 1947 he was commissioned to produce two stained glass windows for a Breseux church In 1949 he produced a tapestry for the Dominicans of Saulchoir, Seine-et-Oise. These other mediums were ongoing supplements to his painting, throughout his career (selected theatre work includes a 1960 Nervi Italy mounting of the Decameron involving 340 costumes and 18 sets, costumes for a 1963 production of Galileo Galilei at Theatre National Populaire

Théâtre National Populaire

The Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....

, Paris; selected stained glass work includes 1952 project at All Saints Church in Basel, 1957 project at Chapel of Ste Therese in Nord, 1959 at Munsterkirche in Essen, 1964 at St Gereau in Cologne, and 1968 for Paris' Convent of the Soeurs de l'Assomption; selected tapestry work includes 1952 commission for State of France, 1957 benediction cape for a Nord church, and a 1969 commission for the National Arts Center in Ottawa)

This latter project in Canada triggered for Manessier another spiritual awakening. When visiting Canada in 1967 to view the projected Arts building site and to assess the Ottawa light, he was inspired during discussions of Canada's large areas of undeveloped land and Inuit art and life relatively untouched by Western culture: "I had a feeling of having penetrated elemental nature. The bottom of the lake is full of roots and of decomposed vegetation, and nature is reborn by way of all this. Never have I experienced a similar sensation. I discovered a prehistoric dimension."

He was the victim of a car accident in Loiret

Loiret

Loiret is a department in north-central FranceThe department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.- History :...

 on 28 July 1993, and died four days later at the Source hospital in Orléans. His funeral was held at the church of Saint-Sépulcre d'Abbeville and he was buried in the Cimetière de Saint-Ouen

Cimetière de Saint-Ouen

The Saint-Ouen Cemetery is located just north of Montmartre at Saint-Ouen, near Paris, France. The cemetery consists of two parts. The first, located on Rue Adrien Lesesne opened in 1860 and the second at 2 Avenue Michelet was opened on September 1, 1872....

at his birthplace.

Selected Awards

• 1953 São Paulo Biennale, 1st Prize for Painting
• 1954 Vienna Exhibition of Sacred Art, 1st Prize
• 1955 Carnegie Institute Pittsburgh, International Grand Prize for Contemporary Painting
• 1955 Valencia Venezuela, International Painting Prize
• 1958 Grenchen Switzerland Triennale, 1st Prize for Engravings
• 1962 Venice Biennale, International Grand Prix for Painting

Selected Museums and Public Collections

• Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
• Berlin, Nationalgalerie
• Rio de Janeiro, Museo de Arte Moderna
• Helsinki, Kuntmuseum Atheneum
• Paris, Ministere des Affaires Culturelles
• Le Havre, Le Havre Musee
• Rotterdam, Museum Boymans Van Beuningen
• Turin, Museo Civico
• Luxemborg, Musee d'Histoire et d'Art
• Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet
• Malmo, Malmo Museum
• Stockholm, Moderna Museet
• Zurich, Kunsthaus
• New York, Guggenheim Museum
• New York, Museum of Modern Art
• DC, Phillips Collection