Nu Print

To wake up to painting, I had the chance to meet two people who, in very separate areas, were crazy about art. One was Monsieur Lascroux, my teacher. A true "hussar of the Republic", always in gray blouse, easily handling the rule to hit the fingers of the most agitated classroom, or those who forgot to learn their lessons. This rough-tempered man had the gift of conveying to his pupils his passions for ancient literature, Homer, the Aeneid and the Odyssey, and for painting and his great masters. With him, we entered the universe and the workshops of Van Gogh, Vlaminck, Monet, Utrillo, and in their secret colors. The other character remained the village near the family home, Varengeville-sur-Mer, father of cubism, Georges Braque. From him I saw only the limousine with tinted windows, but I knew he was on board. I finally met him at the church of the parish of his residence during the service celebrated for the inauguration and the blessing of the stained glass windows of which he had made the boxes. I discovered his work much later, but being able to breathe at the same time as him the raw wind of the Pays-de-Caux was the greatest honor he could make me. It was even later, well after the watercolors and gouaches of schooling, that I tried the oil. The first successful attempts encouraged me to continue. Although my job could lead me to visual artists and their vernissage evenings, I had to postpone my pictorial projects. The painting is a jealous mistress who admits no other concubinage. She takes the whole being. Nearly forty years passed before I returned to her with an intact love. I am still amajating, understanding, looking in the recesses of my soul and my being. She can get me out of bed at 4 o'clock in the morning, or starve me for most of the night. As it can also go out of my mind to let me go in search of new inspirations. My paintings are signed Jérôme Dufay. It's a family name that I took as an artist's name. It is that of a cousin, died during the Second World War. Taken prisoner during the 1940 Debacle, he had been released in a state of total exhaustion, the body bruised and mutilated by his jailers. His return from Germany to his mother had been his last trip. His name does not appear on any stele and not even on his own burial. In this way, his name comes back through my painting. My name is Pierre Mabire.