In the absence of the artist

Claude Morini

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Claude Morini

Exhibition from January 18 to February 1, 2014

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Friend of the artist’s children, Eva Vautier, still a teenager, met Claude Morini, paintings under her arm, on the stairs of his house.

On the occasion of the publication of the catalog raisonné of his engravings – published by stArt and l’Ormaie – and the homage paid to him by the city of Nice – exhibition of the entirety of his engraved work – she makes her space available for two weeks. The gallery usually presents young, living artists for a contemporary art exhibition. This time, the artist is not there. On May 22, 1982, at the age of 43, Claude Morini had left the premises. This is only a part of a work that was not even considered contemporary at the time.

Made with ink, pastels or charcoal, with pencil and with authentic brushes, it is the work of an “easel painter”! No happening, no video but a smell of turpentine… reminding us of a time when the artist was already painting against the current of the Nice avant-garde…

Claude Morini has chosen to leave. But he did not take his work with him. It is “in the absence of the artist” but well “in the presence of the work” that Eva Vautier took the decision to present Morini.

F B.

Claude left, on tiptoe, and somewhere near Monique he is happy, while here below his children always watch with the greatest vigilance over the soul of this moving painting sprung from the heart and love of a desperately free man.

Frédéric ALTMANN,

in Claude Morini, La passion de peindre, Editions stArt – 2002

I remember when I was younger, and we thought, with the object, we had buried the Morinis, Vigny etc. In fact Morini continued to paint the essential. How could I have known that Morini suffered so much from art? that he meant everything and turned around? (4/07/2001)

If I had been in charge of culture in Nice, I would have put Morini at the Mamac. Even if it means having a complete blackout from Paris and hearing them call us nerds. (14/06/2005)

Ben VAUTIER, Ben-vautier.com

“Yes, the essential is invisible… But the painter needs the material, a canvas cannot remain white”. Did he suspect that by stating his truth, he would immediately be opposed by the supporters of emptiness in painting, for whom a canvas that remains blank is not silence but expression? (…)

Claude Morini had accepted once and for all that a work of art is the alliance of a form and a thought, while all around him were sometimes deconstructing one, sometimes the other.

Pierre PROVOYEUR,

in Claude Morini, La passion de peindre, Editions stArt – 2002

Morini, I dare to write, has never painted anything else than the anguish of death, even when we read in the eyes of his characters the hope or the expectation of pleasure.

Max GALLO,

in Hommage à Morini, Retrospective Catalogue Château Musée de Cagnes-sur-Mer, March 1985

As a child, he was exposed to painting, particularly that of his maternal grandfather, a Hungarian impressionist painter, Edmund Pick, known as Morino. His artist name will inspire his own pseudonym.

He received a Christian education and became involved in a number of charitable activities at an early age.

After a teenage years not very focused on studies, he enters in painting. But at the age of 17 he had to go to Paris for a business school. This departure forces him to abandon the elderly people he cares for and is not without its problems…

He abandoned this training and spent a year at the Penninghen workshop; then he left the capital to settle in the Cimiez monastery in Nice. There he met his uncle, both painter and monk, who accompanied him everywhere to paint… He spent a few months at the Arts Déco in Nice but mainly practiced ceramics in Vallauris.

He meets Monique Beaugrand, his future wife, within the framework of the charitable action to which he devotes himself again…

At the beginning of 1960, he was in Brives for military service; a year later he was called to Algeria. This period without painting, marked by the war and the separation, announces the disease. He was repatriated at the end of 1961 and hospitalized at the Val-de-Grâce where he was treated for hepatitis and depression. Finally, final demobilization in March 1962. He moved to Vallauris and married Monique in July.

From then on, his main preoccupation was to paint and exhibit.

In 1963 his first son was born, whom he named Francis because of his admiration for the “poor boy” of Assisi. He did not stop painting and began to participate in numerous exhibitions; he received the UMAM prize in 1965. We can feel in his work all the admiration he has for Georges Braque but also for Nicolas de Staël. In 1966 Marielle, his only daughter, was born, while Antoine, his last son, was born three years later.

Besides oil painting, he developed a particular technique: aluchromy. Its decorative dimension offers real opportunities in architecture. However, he soon found that aluchromy overshadowed his status as a painter. Also, he reduces the formats, integrates characters, inscribes his themes on aluminum and exposes his realizations in gallery.

From 1976 onwards he resolutely puts the emphasis back on oil painting and devotes himself to gouache. He exhibits all over France and in Switzerland. The hyperactivity and the successive disappearance of many friends lead him straight to a strong depression.

After a fairly long convalescence, he gradually returned to work thanks to the engraving to which he had always been sensitive. He tries it and very quickly devotes a lot of time to it. He considers it a relevant means of expression and uses it with ease. He founded the Collective of Artists of the Free Faculty of Blausasc.

In painting, his themes are successful. He reached his maturity there. But his portrait, everywhere present, refers to an incessant questioning. His painting becomes obsessive. Depression overtakes him again and, in several assaults, overwhelms him.

He killed himself in Nice on May 22, 1982.