Grosperrin: The Old Barn At The Farmhouse: Figurative But With A Twist

A friend who saw this painting described it as "unlike any style he had seen before". Resolutely modern, it is figurative - but with a twist.

This was exactly the aim of the 1960s "Jeune peinture" mouvement, which held as its mission to modernise art while building on its traditional structures, and of which Claude Grosperrin was a member.

Grosperrin studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, with Maurice Brianchon, from 1956, before completing his education at the National Academdy of Applied Arts.

Shortly thereafter, he began exhibiting his paintings and original lithographs in some of the most prestigious galleries of the French capital, such the Galerie Andr Weil, the Galerie Charpentier, the Galerie Durand-Ruel, and the Galerie Berthe Weill.

By the 1960s, Claude Grosperrin had one-man shows in Toulouse, Brest, London and New York, exhibiting also at the Paris Salons and the Paris Biennale. An untimely death cut short his career in 1977.

Today, works by Claude Grosperrin are in in public collections in Paris, Angers, Toulouse, Cologne, Stuttgart, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco.

Our modernist farmhouse barn dates to circa 1960, and is signed at the lower right. On the verso are an unidentified exhibition label and early stamps from French customs, meaning that the painting travelled internationally shortly after it was created.

Measuring 60 x 73 cm, the overall size with a simple frame is 69 x 81 cm.