Chaissac et CoBrA : sous le signe du serpent

Exhibition at the Musée Soulages, Rodez, 16 November 2021 - 8 May 2022

Although they never met, the artists of the CoBrA group (active between 1948 and 1951) and the painter Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964) shared the same creative vision. Rejecting knowledge and learning, they favoured an art based on imagination and spontaneity.

While the first of these artists testified to the vitality of the Nordic scene, from which they originated, it was in the French capital that many of them established themselves and made a name for themselves. Their formal and chromatic boldness, with its references to the primitive arts and children's drawings, was echoed in the work of the self-taught outsider Gaston Chaissac. Chaissac, who was admired by Jean Dubuffet, developed a highly original body of work, experimenting with boldly graphic images on recycled materials, as well as a substantial body of letters and poetry.

This catalogue of the first exhibition to bring together works by Chaissac and the CoBrA group bears witness to an astonishing affinity between these artists, in terms of both form and content. In addition to the plastic familiarities of these mavericks of modern art, their art echoes precariousness, childhood and imagination, and exalts life, invention and spontaneity. The book includes 130 paintings, drawings, collages, objects and letters (including totem poles) from public and private collections.