Exihibition "The City" - Henri Landier


	Durantin street, oil, 1989
Lepic street, oil, 1966	The Imperia balloon, oil, 2003
Canari : the charleston dancer in front of Montmartre, oil, 1962	Venice Ponte de la Comenda, oil, 1996

Born in 1935 in Paris, Henri Landier has made more than exhibitions around the world an has a presence in several museums. Indefatigable worker, he can be proud of a painted, engraved and drawed work of several thousands of numbers. About ten books, about fifty catatalogs and a CD-Rom titled "The coherence of a work" have been published.

From 1953 to 2008, the works presented by Henri Landier are remarkable testimonies of the life of this authentic "Montmartrois"...
...Henri Landier has eclectic aspirations which howewer have a common sense of the Human, the respect of the others and above all the love of life.
Talking of this, let's listen to him : "In 1953, when I turned 18, I set as my goal to live from my art. I drew, I sketched, I painted. Day and night. Especially night, because the darkness inspired me: the shapes of the shadows, nuances in the obscurity, contrasting shades... The little streets of Montmartre and of the Latin Quarter, the disorder of Les Halles, the mystery of the quays along the Seine and its bridges offered an inexhaustible source for my unbridled creativity!"
For Landier, who since his beginning in painting has always refused facility, has never wanted enter in a pictural movement or to follow a fashion, the act of painting is a serious thing, too much serious to consider it only as a profession...
...An exhibition from Henri Landier, is more than a presentation of works, it is rather a meeting with a man of exception whose creations are as many proclamations to the glory of an harmony so rare to find to-day!

At some hundreds of meters of the "place du Tertre", in the 18th district of Paris, and galleries for suckers, works the painter and engraver Henri Landier, whose destiny is closely connected to this part of the city. A generous man, an ambitious work, an opened worshop not intimidating for a penny, which is necessary to discover...

From Montmartre to the little ligure Italian town of Imperia, from the shadow to light, from the 50's to nowadays : Henri Landier exhibits a retrospective of his work...
... In his youthful years, Landier painted a lot at night, "inspired by darkness, the shapes, the shadows, the nuances of the obscurity, contrasting shades"...
...From 1966 however, his love for light and the warm and vibrating colours appears in a painting of the "Lepic street", light and joyful which we shall find later, at the end of the 80's, in oil representing the "Durantin street" or the "Mont-Cenis street".
And then he invites to more distant travels with paintings of the 90's dedicated to Prague, the baroque city he fell in love, Venice which he frequents regularly...
...Finally Imperia, the city of peace. Landier came here in 2003. Imperia was then entirely decorated with flags in favour of peace. Then, him, the humanist painted, rainbow coloured, its streets and its places in the dazzling of spring.
For the cover of the exhibition catalog a quite recent recent oil, dated 2008, and representing Château-Rouge : paleness of haussmanian buildings and liveliness shop colors.

It is in 1975 that Henri Landier - artist and traveler, talented painter and engraver - opens his space-worshop : a gallery at the foot of the "Butte Montmartre" in Paris. His atypical and personal work goes out of the beaten tracks and investigates diverse thema : the night, the cities, the theater, the chaos...
The theme of the city, in ruin or under construction, gives evidence of the time which passes and fascinates Henri Landier by its ceaseless flows.
After more than 100 exhibitions in France and abroad, the Atelier d'Art Lepic presents its exhibition " The city by Landier, from Montmartre to Imperia" to welcome, always more numerous, passionately art-collectors and curious, sensitive to the artist's work.

This new exhibition gathers paintings and engravings on the theme of the city, topic that Henri Landier likes to explore, he, the eternal traveller...
...With this new exhibition Henri Landier leads us to the discovery of many cities he made immortal in well precised instants, instants doubled of lived circumstances which are become an infinite source of inspiration from 1953 to nowadays.

Henri Landier has created a body of work that is intensely personal and independant of current modes .
His very different themes : the night, ports, citie, portraits, the theatre... were inspired by a fascination with the flow of time and the irreversible process of life...
...Since 1975, he makes exhibitions in permanency in the Art Lepic Worshop, and becomes so the animator of his own creation.
The city by Landier from Montmartre to Imperia (1953 to 2008).

Arts Gazette International - n°578 - may 20th 2008

... A spring wind has blown on Montmartre... Henri Landier who does more than frequenting these heigths loaded with story, bathed in this atmosphere and transcribed it with perfumes of colours...

...Going back to Montmartre, it's to find again or to rediscover that true great painter who, out of shows, clans, out of galleries, paints, engraves,exhibits in his worshop as did it in the 30's those of Montparnasse. A surviver of what Dorgelès called " Mecca of the artists" where we enter, strolling by Lepic street. A perfect preserved place of our yesterday France...

Henri Landier in his workshop
Until June 15, Henri Landier presents a retrospective of his work in an exhibition titled The City : from Montmartre to Imperia.
Venice, Prague Chanteloup-les-Vignes, Paris, Imperia ... and his Montmartre so different of all the others, with bursting colours at any time of day and night. You must go in this exceptional place that is the Atelier d'art Lepic, there, where Henri Landier draws, paints, engraves, lives!