L’AMOUR FOU (Copie) CLAUDE GILLI

“A true pillar of the School of Nice, Claude Gilli left us in the summer of 2015, leaving behind him a body of work inhabited and rich in experience: Ex-votos, castings, cuttings, work with snails then three-dimensional sculptures. In polychrome wood, molded resin or painted steel, this adventure in the world of materials allowed him to leave us a colorful work, full of humor, and inhabited by his native Côte d'Azur. Since the early 2000s, he had chosen to return to his favorite work, carved wood, to revive his pleasure in coloring feelings and memories. It was during this period that he produced this series of pieces in homage to love, to life, to its pleasure of surprising us. »

Michel Roudillon

ARTIST

Claude Gilli is a key artist from the School of Nice who has significantly contributed to the affirmation of French pop art. Born in Nice in 1938, he entered the School of Decorative Arts in Nice in 1955. Between 1957 and 1959, during his first exhibitions at the Galerie de Longchamp, he became friends with Albert Chubac, Martial Raysse, then Ben during the inauguration of the latter's "Laboratory 32".

In 1962, on New Year's Eve, he burned almost all of his youthful works. Then he met Arman, César, Farhi and Venet before meeting Robert Malaval with whom he produced several works around "L'aliment blanc". He presented numerous exhibitions, notably in Venice then in Paris, with Yvon Lambert after having obtained the Lefranc Prize in 1966. The following year he took part in the exhibition "12 Super-Réalistes" in Venice with Del Leone where he discovered the works of American "pop", Lichtenstein, Warhol and Wesselmann. Then in 1968 he worked with Plexiglas before starting a series of “snail” paintings.

In 1976, installed in a Parisian studio, he took part in numerous international exhibitions, including one dedicated to the "school of Nice" at the Center Georges Pompidou. In 1981 a retrospective was dedicated to him at the Museum of Nice, and several catalogs were published under the pen of Pierre Restany. He also created a monumental steel sculpture for the Palais des Congrès in the city of Nice.