Christian Caillard (1899–1985)

Descended from a line of artists, Christian Caillard grew up on the Butte Montmartre. His mother, Huguette Mendes, a teacher, was the daughter of Augusta Holmes, a musician, and Catulle Mendès, a writer and poet. His father, Gabriel Caillard, was a writer. His uncle, Henri Barbusse, gave him his first paint set.

After studying at the Collège Rollin, he sat the entrance exam for the École Centrale. Mobilised in 1918, he served in the artillery, but on returning to civilian life decided to abandon science and devote himself to painting.

In 1921, Caillard enrolled at the Académie Biloul for a few months and met Eugène Dabit, future author of Hôtel du Nord, and the painter Georges-André Klein. In 1922, at the Lapin Agill, he met Irène Champigny.

With Dabit and Champigny, he took up batik-making and accepted a commission of 300 metres for the Galeries Lafayette, turning their studio into a craft workshop. With the proceeds, Champigny and Caillard rented a former linen room on the rue Saint-Anne and transformed it into a gallery — the Galerie Champigny. Caillard exhibited there alongside Klein, Dabit, Béatrice Appiat, and soon Maurice Loutreuil. Together they formed the École du Pré-Saint-Gervais.

Caillard met Maurice Loutreuil in November 1923. It was a revelation. He would say: "This encounter lit up my youth and shaped my life." Loutreuil became not only a master but also a friend and guide. At his death in 1925 he left Caillard his canvases and his studio at the Pré-Saint-Gervais.

A decisive chapter in Caillard's career as a painter came with his first stays in Morocco in 1927–1928, a fertile source of inspiration. Encouraged by this experience of displacement, he began a world tour in 1933, staying at length in Indochina, Bali, Bora-Bora and Martinique.

His travels led him to focus ever more closely on questions of light. He immersed himself in the landscapes and customs of the countries where he lived, filling many notebooks with sketches and watercolours that bear witness to his encounters and sensations. He always painted from life, in direct emotional contact with his subject, driven by the desire to convey the beauty and vitality of what he perceived.

Back in France, he received the Blumenthal Prize in 1934. In 1935 he settled in a studio in the 9th arrondissement of Paris at 6, rue Clauzel — a stone's throw from the little shop where père Tanguy had sold colours to the greatest artists: Van Gogh, Pissarro, Gauguin, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir. There he brought back the canvases he had "harvested" across the world.

Mobilised in 1939, he was taken prisoner in the Vosges in 1940. Released in June 1941, he resumed painting, dividing his time between Brittany, travels abroad and his Parisian studio.

In 1949, with seven fellow painters — Maurice Brianchon, Jules Cavaillès, Raymond Legueult, Roger Limouse, Roland Oudot, André Planson and Kostia Térechkovitch — he formed the group of Painters of Poetic Reality, one of the most original groups in mid-twentieth-century French art.

During his career, Caillard also created murals for national museums and illustrated works by Colette, Francis Carco, and editions of the Histoire de France and La Fontaine's Fables.

Until his death, Caillard continued to travel the world: Morocco, Mexico, Greece, Spain — where he acquired a house in 1956 at Javea near Alicante. He spent a further year in Madagascar in 1964, then Ceylon in 1970, Bora-Bora and Bali in 1973, Tunisia in 1974, Mexico in 1976 and Nepal in 1979.

In his final years he divided his time between his Spanish home, the island of Ouessant — whose shifting light and desolate moorland he loved — and his Parisian studio in the 9th arrondissement. He died there on 18 September 1985.

After his death, the Galerie Jean-Pierre Joubert paid tribute to him in Paris in June 1986. The city of Menton received him in April 1987 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts of the Palais Carnolès. In 1997, the city of Paris devoted a major retrospective to him in honour of his role as painter of the 9th arrondissement.