Frederic menguy biography

Biography

Follow Frédéric MENGUY

Born in Paris in 1927, Frédéric Menguy was a pupil at the Sarcelles secondary school, then at the commercial school in Goussainville (Val d'Oise). Very early on, he developed a passion for drawing and painting and attended evening classes at the Paris workshops (Place des Vosges, then Boulevard du Montparnasse) while working as an accountant in an insurance company (1943-1949), then only part-time in a stockbroker's office (1950-1951). More in line with his vocation, he entered the École normale d'enseignement du dessin in 1951 and, having obtained the certificat d'aptitude au professorat de l'enseignement du dessin d'art, taught drawing in 1953.

In 1956, Frédéric Menguy gave up teaching to devote himself entirely to his work as a painter, following in the footsteps of Bernard Buffet and André Minaux, in the expressionist tradition of Francis Gruber, whose dark and miserable paintings always express the pessimism of the post-war period. 1957 was the year of his first exhibitions3, and personal exhibitions at the Théâtre du Tertre of the writer and engraver Georges Charaire, then in the Parisian salons. In 1958, he married Nicole Allardin.

The research that followed in Frédéric Menguy's work initially brought him closer to abstract landscape painting and evoked Nicolas de Stael. His lithographic work began in 1964, before his discovery of the Corbières region in 1966 led him to settle in Villeneuve-la-Rivière the following year, where he turned definitively to the colourful figuration that was to characterise him, particularly with his cypress landscapes and his dreamlike evocations of femininity and the world of the circus with its clowns and horse rides.

Paying tribute to Frédéric Menguy who died in March 2007, only a few days after his wife was taken by a painful illness, Patrice de La Perrière analyses that, "despite the festive side of his subjects and themes, we realise that beyond the image offer

Frédéric Menguy

Frédéric MENGUY is born in Paris in 1927. He attends evening classes in the City of Paris and becomes a drawing teacher, which allows him to devote himself to painting from 1956.

He is a member of the Salon d'Automne and a member of the Committee of the National Society of Fine Arts. Winner of the Critic's Prize in 1968, just like Bernard BUFFET 20 years earlier, he exhibits in France and around the world, and his works are featured in numerous museums.

Menguy has the infinite talent of being a painter that one recognizes at first glance...

His passion for joyful subjects, especially the circus where the ring is illuminated with all the hues of happiness, with its laughing clowns and colorful balloons, wonderfully expresses what this eternal child brings to painting through his gentleness, grace, and incomparable communicative joy.

Moreover, Menguy sees life through rose-colored glasses... This pink that is like his signature, his desire to be the painter of joy, of happy times; of childhood years.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES

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