Louis Duck

Louis Duck , born in 1943 with Beaulieu-sur-Mer in the the Alpes-Maritimes, is a painter and contemporary Sculpteur French.

Biography

In 1961, it enters to the National school of decorative Arts, Nice, then carries out two years of studies to the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of decorative Arts of Paris.

In 1967 - 1968 Louis Cane exposes, with Arman, Benjamin Vautier, No5el Dolla and Patrick Saytour, with the Hall of the Handing-over in question, new place opened by Ben with Nice, a fabric obliterated by a series of seal-plugs, on all the surface of paper ( All-over ), LOUIS DUCK PAINTER. The Tampons constitute, with the stuck Papiers (wallpapers then cut out in fine bands and restuck on sheet of kraft) the first work of the artist.

During the first exposure of the group Supports/Surfaces, Viallat refuses the participation of Duck, which distributes then in the exposure, a theoretical text, disputing the coherence of the group, leaflet which inaugurates a series of polemics and disputes.

The review, “Painting, theoretical books”, whose Cane is one of the founders, appears in 1971, at the same time as are accentuated the divergences within the group Supports/Surfaces. It carries out this same year, its first personal exposures to Paris (gallery Daniel Templon and gallery Yvon Lambert) and takes part in the second and third exposure Supports/Surfaces to the Theater from the international City in Paris in April, then in June with the theater of Nice.

Until 1975, Cane continues its abstract series: Fabrics cut out as from 1970, fabrics without frame, spread out over the ground, then painted by vaporization and folded into two, finally cut out and fastened directly on the wall followed by the Fabrics on the ground of 1972, reflection on space in painting and the chromatism, finally the series Ground/Wall of 1974 - 1975, of the black fabrics saturated with color by pulverization.

Between 1973 and 1978, it accomplishes many voyages in Italy, where the frescos of Raphaël to the the Vatican will influence it, then studies traditional painting, that of Cimabue and Giotto in particular.

In 1975 and 1976, it starts to practice an semi-abstract painting: first drawings on the Ménines and first fabrics painted with arches, the appearance of the angel. In 1977, it belongs to the exposure “the avant-garde 1960-1976: three cities, three collections” road show (Marseilles, Grenoble, Saint-Etienne and Center Georges-Pompidou in Paris) in which appeared the majority of the artists of the movement Supports/Surfaces.

Of a painting abstracted on a final return to the figuration, in 1978, Louis Cane reflect on the history of the pictorial forms and launch out in an exacerbated figuration of emblematic figures, nude women and quartered, childbirth, Annunciations, lunches on grass… in styles. Duck forever hidden its sources: Picasso, Manet, Monet, Goya, Rembrandt, Matisse, and more close to us Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, and finally of Kooning.

The sculpture which it approaches since 1978, has been for him a familiar discipline, for its years of training. The statues, female almost exclusively, join again with the traditional practice of modelling, and the forms are shown then sometimes burlesques, sometimes pathetic, of a expressionnism baroque. One can quote for example the series of the Ménines (inspired inter alia Velasquez), or Desmoiselles on a swing .

During the construction of the news cathedral of Évry, it constructs a modern gate vault, of cubic form. This one is covered on five faces with mosaics inspired with those with the Église primitive. The topics of decoration are the symbols used by the first Christians: dove, grape, bread, fish.

Louis Cane, who was pupil of decorative Arts, is also a creator of talented furniture, this activity representing a big part of his artistic creation (especially these last years).

Principal exposures

1977 : Louis Duck with the National center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris and with the Documented VI with Cassel (Germany).
1986: Pictura loquens, 25 years of art in France with the Villa national Arson-Center of contemporary art, Nice (France).
1987: The Collection of the museum of Modern art of Saint-Etienne and Villeurbanne.
1997: Made in France 1947-1997, 50 years of creation in France with the National center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris.
1998: the Years Supports/Surfaces in the collections of the Center Georges Pompidou , national Gallery of Jeu de Paume, Paris.

External bonds

Louis Duck on a site of Contemporary art
the personal testimony of Louis Duck

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