Bissière, the other half

The exhibition explores “The Painted Diary" produced between 1962 and 1964 by French artist Roger Bissière (1886-1964) in the last two years of his life. A series of small paintings dated the day they were made, the work is dedicated to the memory of his wife. Initially his model, she became the subject of his paintings and from the mid-1940s onwards also helped to ‘fabricate' the work by sewing and embroidering hangings made from appliqué fabrics. When she died suddenly on 13 October 1962, the woman nicknamed 'Mousse' became the subject and raison d'être of this series of paintings.

Although Bissière was devastated by her death, he quickly returned to his studio. “Like an apple tree produces apples," the painter created, with the use of his brush and a few felt-tip pens, an ambitious series of 152 paintings in which he captures his everyday surroundings in images. Over the course of 780 days, he executed these small compositions, dated from one day to the next, on wooden boards laid on his knees. Rather than describe the world, he sought to recreate, through the colours and movements of his brush, the freshness of the woods, the incandescence of fire, the airiness of a spring day, the heat of summer at midday in the Lot region of southwestern France, and the darkness of night.

Steeped in nature and the landscape he loved, he expressed its budding life and perpetual rebirth. These images are a projection of the artist in search of spiritual communion with the viewer. He paints "to be less alone in this miserable world" and to reach out to others across space and time.

The exhibition, planned in close collaboration with the artist's family, is composed of a selection of forty-seven of these paintings, many seen in public for the first time.

The exhibition is curated by Florian Rodari, honorary curator and director of the Fondation Jean et Suzanne Planque, Maïlis Favre, curator, and Isabelle and Caroline Bissière, the artist's granddaughters.

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