Jean COMMERE : Jeune bergère - Signed watercolour

Jean-Yves Commère : (1920-1986) was a french painter, watercolouris, draughtsman and illustrator. In 1936, he entered the école des beaux-arts d'Angers, and then the Ecole des beaux-arts de Paris 2 years later, in the workshop of sculptor Jean Boucher. From 1936, he took part in numerous collective exhibitions in France and abroad. In 1951, his first personal exhibition took place in Paris, at the Monique de Groote gallery. He received the Great Prize Othon Friesz for his painting "Inondations à Denée" in 1952. Jean Commère stage curtains, decors, and costumes for "Étoiles" by Béla Bartok at the Opéra de Paris in 1955. He made the portraits of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret for the "Les sorcières de Salem" in 1956. In 1957, his canvas "Le vel d'hiv" was acquired by the city of Paris. Commère was named chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of Arts and Litterature) in 1958 and took part the same year in the Biennale de Venise. He was promoted officer from the same order in 1979. In 1971, Philippe Reichenbach gallery offered him his first retrospective in New York. He won several prizes. He went back to his birth region of Anjou in the beginning of the 1980's. In 1984, the city of Angers offered to the pope Jean-Paul II a "Descent from the cross" by Commère. His wife, Suzanne, died in July 1986. Jean Commère killed himself the same year in October.