Maurice Rocher (1918-1995) - Le Matador

The Matador - Maurice Rocher (1918-1995)
Gouache on paper before 1960 - Signed bottom left, framed
Frame dimensions: 64x75 cm
Gouache dimensions within the mat: 60x50 cm
Provenance: Private Camdessus collection - acquired from the artist.
The frame shows some signs of age.
Shipped framed, with tracking and insurance.

Maurice Rocher, born August 1, 1918 in Évron and died July 12, 1995 in Versailles, is a French painter whose work is steeped in Expressionism and spirituality. Trained at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and at the Sacred Art Studios under the guidance of Maurice Denis and Georges Desvallières, he explored intense and often mystical themes such as crucifixions, the tortured, face-materials, women and couples. His art, influenced by Constant Permeke, is characterized by dark tones, his brown period between 1936 and 1965, and compositions laden with a powerful pictorial mass, becoming more colorful between 1966 and 1995.
Maurice Rocher remains an unclassifiable artist, an “anarcho-mystic,” to borrow the words of one of his biographers. Marked first by faith, then by doubt and finally by a search for meaning, his work remains an inquiry into eternal values between the sacred and the profane. The black-and-white Gouaches revisit the painter’s emblematic series themes.

Salons
Paris, Salon of those under thirty, 1941.
Paris, Sacred Art Salon: 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949.
Paris, Charpentier Gallery, One Hundred Masterpieces of Sacred Art, 1952.
Paris, Galliera Museum, Celebrities and Revelations of Contemporary Painting, 1953.
Paris, Biennale of Young Artists, 1957.
World Exhibition of Brussels, 1958.
Autumn Salon: 1960 to 1970.
Tokyo, International Exhibition of Figurative Art, 1964.
Tehran, First International Exhibition of Tehran Arts, International Exhibition Center, December 1974 - January 1975[18].
Paris, Salon Grand and Young of Today, 1976 to 1981.
Paris, Salon des Realités Nouvelles, 1968 to 1985.

Notable Exhibitions
The Association of Art Lovers presents Bernard Buffet, André Minaux, Roger Montané, Maurice Rocher, Gaëtan de Rosnay, Robert Savary, Maurice Verdier, Paul Aïzpiri… Galerie Jacques Leuvraix, 182 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, January 1949[19].
Galerie Drouant, Paris, 1964
Galerie Jacques Massol, Paris, 1968, 1970, 1972[21].
Galerie Veranneman, Brussels, 1970.
Musée de Saint-Omer, 1974.
Galeria Altex, Madrid, 1977.
Galerie Ariel, Paris, 1976, 1979.
Musée du Vieux Château, Laval, 1981.
Galerie Protée, Paris, 1983, 1984, 1988.
Galerie Convergence, Nantes, 1982, 1986.
Twenty Modern and Contemporary Masters Galerie Serge Garnier, Paris, 1983.
Figurations from the 1960s to the present - Valerio Adami, Lydie Arickx, Eduardo Arroyo, Philippe Bonnet, John Christoforou, Robert Combas, Pierre Dessons, Roger-Edgar Gillet, Peter Klasen, Claude Morini, Jean Revol, Maurice Rocher, Jean Rustin, Gérard Schlosser, Hervé Télémaque, Vladimir Veličković…, itinerant exhibition 1986-1987
Galerie Olivier Nouvellet, Paris 1993, 1998, 2002, 2006.
Galerie Pierre Marie Vitoux, Paris, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2007, May-June 2014, March-April 2017.
Collection Jean Pollak - Fifty Years of Painting in France Musée départemental Zadkine, Les Arques, 2005
Galerie Zafman, Paris 2008.
Versailles in the 20th Century, museum of artists, Musée Lambinet, Versailles, September-November 2020
Cabane Georgina, Marseille 2023.
Galerie Ories, Paris, October 2024

Works in Museums
IN FRANCE:
Versailles, Lambinet Museum, Poitiers, Sainte-Croix Museum, Paris, Centre National des Arts Plastiques CNAP, National Art Fund FNAP, Cannes, Castre Museum, Laval Museum of Laval, Saint-Omer, Hôtel Sandelin Museum, Nantes Fine Arts Museum, Troyes, Modern Art Museum, Pontoise, Tavet-Delacour Museum, Brest, Art Library of the Brest Fine Arts Museum
ABROAD:
Brussels, Belgium, Kruishoutem, Belgium Veranneman Foundation, Wiesbaden, Germany, Ministry of Science and Arts of Hesse, Rome, Italy, Vatican City, Contemp. Sacred Art Museum, Chihuahua, Mexico, Cuauhtémoc Museum, Taichung, Taichung, Taiwan, Taichung Contemporary Art Museum