Biography
“What is striking about Mousseau’s painting is its immediacy, its sharpness, its energy. It is straightforward, bold, and gives itself to the moment. The color : the dominant red rules over all other, except for the black which governs the red, and the white which rules over the black. So on, and so forth. Mousseau’s painting creates silence ; it softens the world, deafens, and calms it.” – Albert Dichy
Michel Mousseau was born in 1934 in Anjou (France).
He discovers Cezanne at high school. Often, he runs away from the cities to wander alone in the countryside in order to paint. A close friend takes him to the workshop of a painter where he sees real Modigliani and Soutine works. Then he travels to England and Spain where he admires Rembrandt, Gainsborough (National Gallery, London), The Meninas and portraits by Greco (Prado, Madrid).
Then he begins to study at the Sorbonne in Paris but very soon he chooses to be a painter. He studies at the Académie Julian. He lives in Saint-Germain des Prés, meets Roland Topor, and starts to illustrate books. He also collaborates with authors to create theater sets, and show posters.
In 1957, two solo-shows of his works are organized, Galerie Malaval in Lyon and Galerie Tooth in London. Then, the Galerie Motte in Paris will regularly exhibit his work (for ten years). He establishes in Paris.
His painting evolves : very fgurative, it starts to be more abstract, and Michel Mousseau develops his palette with bright colors. Gradually, the colors invade the canvas. The compositions by Mousseau are at the same time monumental and very intimate. He wants to express the beauty of the world, the dynamism of life.
He has participated in several personal and collective exhibitions in Paris, in Brittany (L’Art dans les chapelles, 1999) but also in Tokyo, in London, Geneva, Tel Aviv, Praga, in United States (New York, Messilla, Colorado Springs), in Italy (2018) and twice in Cuba (National Museum of Fine Arts, La Havane in 2005, National Library in 2015).
He has realized nearly 30 illustrated books, thanks to Zéno Bianu, Marie Étienne, Eugène Guillevic, Luis Mizon, Bernard Noël, Éric Sarner, et pour l’œuvre de Pierre Albert-Birot.
Since 1990’s, he has decided to work on the landscape theme, as a draftsman. Each summer, with the same paper, with the same pencil, in the Cotentin (Brittany) he comes to the same place. The point is to make the drawing evolve, working on the shape without changing the motive. More than 1.000 drawings were born there, all called “Lisières” – “Edges”.
In September-october 2017, he has realized the same process at Domaine de Kerguéhennec : he created 103 works called “Terroirs des Origines” – “Origins Territories”.
