ArtistFusaro, Jean

Artist Years1925-living

Artist NationalityFrench

TitleFemme au Tapis jaune

Year1972

MediumPainting > Oil

DimensionsCanvas: 7.5 X 10.5 inches

Accession NumberRC1609

NotesJean Fusaro is a French painter of figures and animated landscapes and water français.

Fusaro was born on19 June 1925 in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). He currently lives and works in Lyon. A student at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon for five years, in which he became a teacher until 1970. He appeared in many exhibitions, notably in Paris at the Salon d'Autumn, and painters who witnessed their time. He received the Prix Fénéon in 1953, the Prix de la ville de Marseille in 1957. His first solo exhibition was held in Lyon in 19472.

From 1990 until 2010, Fusaro produced monumental murals in the Church of Saint-Jacques-des-Arrêts (Haut-Beaujolais) at the request of the General Council of the Rhône on the idea of the missionary for culture, the art critic Bernard Gouttenoire. This work intended for Joseph Ducarre (General Councillor of the canton of Monsols) and Michel Mercier, President of the General Council of the Rhône, Garde des Sceaux - Minister of Justice (at the time of the inauguration - 29 May 2010 - Minister for Spatial Planning and Rural Space), has two essential aspects: a European axis with co-financing of the European Union for theMethod (which were named copatrons of Europe in an encyclical of John Paul II dated December 1980).

An important theme is devoted to Christian roots in conquered Gaule, with the Saints and Martyrs of 177 in Lyon (Blandine, Pothin, Irenaeus). This subject adorns the wall (8 meters high) from the back of the church. Also a path of the cross, both humanistic and naive, marches along the side walls of the church. Other monumental paintings - which in no way deny the painter's admiration for Ensor, Bosch, Bonnard, Dufy or Chagall - give the talent of Jean Fusaro another acuity. The artist also paid a tribute to Saint Agobard patron saint of ufologists (saint little known successor of Leidrade, and who will be the subject of a scientific study, orchestrated in a book published by the Editions du Cerf, by Michel Rubellin, in 2013). In the church a baptism of Christ by John the Baptist, a Golgotha in Beaujolais, (table which includes scenes where we find the painter's self-portrait, the portrait of his wife, that of Lucien Briday mayor of the village or Frédéric Giuliani (director of the cultural service who took the technical aspect of the construction site), are subjects appreciated by the visitors. The whole of this work of 60 m 2 inaugurated by Michel Mercier and Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, makes it possible to speak of a real "jewel in its case" (as the art critic Bernard Gouttenoire says), thus perpetuating the work of the painter for the coming centuries. The church of Saint-Jacques-des-Arrêts joins the circuit of the great French churches decorated by contemporary artists such as Arcabas in Saint-Hugues-de-Chartreuse, but above all the chapelle du Rosaire painted by Matisse à Vence, the chapel decorated by Cocteau in Villefranche-sur-Mer, or the church of the plateau of Assy opposite the Monts.artists of his time (Matisse, Bonnard, Léger, Rouault, Chagall, Germaine Richier, Jean Bazaine, etc.) making the site - unlike the church of Saint-Jacques-des-Arrêts-a site "muséal".

In 2023, Jean Fusaro carried out at the request of the historian Maxime Dehan a series of sketches of the gardens of the Sablière and the house in Caluire and Cuire with the aim of preparing a series of paintings intended for the property or for his personal production.
Source: wikipedia.org)