Raymond Moretti (1931–2005) - Les Clowns

Very rare expressive painting by the French artist Raymond Moretti. It is a watercolour on paper with the dimensions 78 x 60 cm. The painting is signed and dated on the lower left with "Moretti '57" and again but smaller signed and dated on the lower right this time with "Moretti '56". The painting was exhibited in the well-known Galerie Bernheim-Jeune from March 2 to 21, 1957. On the back there is a label from the respective exhibition. Furthermore, on the back there is a stamp from Atelier Pascal in Nice, which Atelier is presumed to have been responsible for the framing. The painting is still in its original frame. For the photos the painting has been temporarily removed from the frame. This painting was also used as the poster for the exhibition at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris.

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune was a famous Parisian art gallery and publishing house, founded in 1863 by Alexandre Bernheim, which played a crucial role in the rise of impressionism and modern art.

Founded in 1863 on Rue Laffitte in Paris, under the leadership of his sons Josse and Gaston Bernheim (with art critic Félix Fénéon as director of contemporary art from 1906) the gallery was expanded into a bastion of innovation.

In 1901 the gallery organized the first solo exhibition and retrospective of Vincent van Gogh in Paris, the first Paris exhibition of Italian futurists in 1912, and groundbreaking shows for Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. After more than 150 years of operation, the physical gallery in Paris closed in 2019 (located on Avenue Matignon), although the family lineage remains active in archival and interpretive work around the historical collections.

Raymond Moretti

Raymond Moretti was born in Nice (south of France) in 1931. His parents came from Italy but fled their homeland due to fascism. The artist in Moretti rose to prominence early. This is evidenced by his work "Moses breaking the Tables of the Law" from 1947, which he created at the age of 16. The work can today be admired in the Jerusalem University Museum. Together with writer/ painter/ filmmaker Jean Cocteau he created many drawings and watercolor paintings and became friends with Pablo Picasso.

His works, linked to humanism but also with a certain spirituality, refer at times to the Holocaust ("Cris du Monde", a suite of twelve oil paintings of 12 square meters, currently in the Tel Aviv museum), and at other times to a text by the great rabbi Israël Shlomo Goren. In 1979 he painted in the Forum des Halles in Paris a huge fresco of 200 square meters devoted to the history of humanity.

In 1985 Moretti curated the poster for the American art happening "Art Expo" in New York and in Paris and Jerusalem, a project in which in Paris and Jerusalem a Hebrew-sign inscription called "La Yona" was placed at the entrance of the great synagogue of the Victory in Paris and the great synagogue Hechai-Shlomo in Jerusalem. Moretti died on June 3, 2005 in Paris, France.