CLAUDE GILLI

Claude Gilli is a leading artist from the Nice school who has greatly contributed to the affirmation of French pop art. Born in Nice in 1938, he entered the Decorative Art school in Nice in 1955. Between 1957 and 1959, during his first exhibitions at the Galerie de Longchamp, he befriended with Albert Chubac, Martial Raysse, then Ben at the inauguration of the latter’s “Laboratory 32”.

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

After settling in a Parisian studio in 1976, he participated in numerous international exhibitions, including one dedicated to the “l’école de Nice (Nice school)” at the Center Georges Pompidou. In 1981 a retrospective was devoted to him at the Musée de Nice, and several catalogs were published by Pierre Restany. He also produced a monumental steel sculpture for the Palais des Congrès in the city of Nice.

The degenerative disorder he was subject to finally caught up with him and obliges him to be in a wheelchair. In 1985, He started working tirelessly and developed works in cut iron, notably for outdoor pieces and monumental sculptures presented at the Center d’Art Contemporain in Rouen (1990) and at the Jousse & Seguin gallery (1991). Three other retrospectives was presented in 1999 at the MAMAC in Nice, with the publication of a catalog with his works; in 2003, at the Villa Tamaris, then in 2004 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bordeaux.

In 2005, Constance Ryder directed a feature-length documentary on her work broadcast on TV5 Monde.

Between 2005 and 2015, Gilli participated in numerous exhibitions in Asia, the United States and Europe, produced a monumental 12-meter steel sculpture for the Alliance Foundation, at the Al-Maaden Golf Resort in Marrakech, and was nominated to the grade of “Commander des Arts et Letters” by the Minister of Culture.

On June 28, 2015 Claude Gilli died in Nice at the age of 76. A posthumous exhibition was dedicated to him at MAMAC in 2017.