Gaston Chaissac

Gaston Chaissac "Bonhomme" 1959 ink on Kraft paper 99 x 65 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Portrait aux yeux ronds" 1941 gouache on paper 24 x 15,5 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Composition à deux personnages" 1942-1943 ink on paper 29 x 29 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Composition aux formes enchevêtrées" 1942 ink on paper 24,2 x 31,8 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Maison sur pilotis" 1942 Gouache and ink on paper 32 x 23,7 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Composition" 1942 gouache and ink on paper 50 x 66 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Paysage maison jaune" 1959 gouache and ink on paper 27 x 21 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Composition" 1961 gouache on paper 31,3 x 24,2 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Composition à un personnage à la plume" 1955 gouache, collage and ink on paper 26,8 x 41,2 cm
Gaston Chaissac "L'Homme au béret" 1961-1962 gouache and collage of tapestry papers 59,5 x 84 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Sans titre" c.1961 oil on fibre board 74 x 63 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Portrait au visage vert" 1959 oil on paper on canvas 64 x 49 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Balai" c.1953 painted straw broom 130 x 21,5 cm
Gaston Chaissac "Totem" 1963 oil on wood 244 x 31,5 x 3 cm
Objects, paintings, drawings, collages
May 3rd - June 15th 2018

Galeria Marc Domènech presents "Gaston Chaissac. Y a d’la joie ... " in order to fill an incomprehensible void in the list of exhibitions of European artists of the first half of the 20th century in our country. The work of Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964) is extraordinarily unknown to the Spanish general public. Only once, a small selection of his work was presented in Spain and it was in Barcelona, ​​in the now disappeared Galeria Adrià, in 1971. This individual and retrospective exhibition of Chaissac’s work is the most important one ever made in the country.

"Gaston Chaissac. Y a d’la joie ... " with almost 40 works, amongst objects, paintings, drawings and collages, proposes a wide and complete journey through all of his original artistic production. His work is ironic, subversive and irreverent. In spite of his social and personal isolation and a fragile health that lasted for his whole life, Chaissac produced a work deliberately away from the great artistic movements of the time. His figures introduce us to a fantastic world of unreal smiling monsters that emerge from abstract compositions. He also offers us an array of altered every-day and dull objects to which he has attributed a new meaning, a new life. Not surprisingly, this overwhelming creative energy ended up leaving a lasting imprint, both personal in some cases and artistic in others, in important personalities of the art world such as Otto Freundlich, Albert Gleizes, Auguste Herbin or Jean Dubuffet himself.

His ability to stay in the often-fruitful thresholds between styles and disciplines makes him one of the most original artists of his time. As described by Joan Perucho in 1971, "Gaston Chaissac was a simple man who, out of life’s bitterness, he extracted the ability to make his childhood appear again. His eyes metamorphosed things with the joyful children’s exaltation, but giving them the salute irony of the adults.