A major figure in contemporary art, Bernard Rancillac died at the age of 90 this Monday at his home in Malakoff.
Born August 29, 1931 in Paris, he had set up his studio in this communist city south of Paris in 1987 to continue his work as a committed plastic artist.
Leader of “Narrative Figuration” in the 1960s with Erró, Monory, Klasen and many others, his works are very colorful borrowing many images from American culture: Walt Disney characters, pin-ups, advertising logos to divert them, thus building a style of satirical French pop art.
March 2003, Malakoff.
View of Bernard Rancillac's exhibition at the Maison des Arts, contemporary art center in Malakoff.
Inspired by jazz, sport, Algeria or Cuba
"His work is full of sources of political inspiration as diverse as jazz, sport, Algeria, Cuba", notes the municipality of Malakoff in a press release, "moved" by the death of the artist.
In 2003, Bernard Rancillac organized an exhibition at the Maison des Arts devoted to his vision of “women from here and elsewhere”.
“There were a lot of works, remembers Aude Cartier, director of the Maison des Arts who had just arrived.
For the opening, all the big names in contemporary art were there, Jacques Monory, Peter Klasen, Catherine Viollet… ”.
Bernard Rancillac also made two donations to the town of Malakoff: a silkscreen print by Roland Kirk at the microphone and a painting of a Bitter Victory (novel adapted for the cinema in 1957) still installed at the Marcel Pagnol cinema.
