Paul Duhem (Blandain, 1919 – Ellignies-Sainte-Anne, 1999) began painting later in life. He was 70 years old when he first crossed the threshold of Bruno Gérard’s workshop, La Pommeraie, where the latter had already been resident for decades. His work, now circulated widely, is represented in numerous public and private collections. It remains completely in the artistry of drawing and painting, ad libitum, the same motifs which are used endlessly, always identical and always different, essentially, faces and doors with the same interior motifs which are also on show on his page, – Paul Duhem hoc fecit ! – through the intelligent, non-exhaustive range of colours and variations, continually leading to the action and daily ritual of painting, with the same ethos and the same tools – pencils, paintbrushes, set squares and protractors, a tin of sardines – where there are deposits of the pigments. In the morning: three paintings and three others in the afternoon, every day in the workshop for ten years until the artist passed away in 1999, the act of painting, which could have infinitely continued but was simply suspended. In his handbook, Poteaux d’angle, Henri Michaux gives artists one simple piece of advice: “Keep things on a short leash.” Looking at Paul Duhem’s paintings, maybe we can dream of a better resonance? Duhem does keep things on a short leash and gives each one of us the freedom to experience the faces, presence and sentiments of our own existence in each of our viewings.
© Paul Duhem, Atelier : La Pommeraie, Ellignies-Sainte-Anne (B) TRINKHALL Museum (former MAD Museum), Rue Fabry, 19 B-4000 Liège TRINKHALL Museum (former MAD Museum)Paul Duhem (Blandain, 1919 – Ellignies-Sainte-Anne, 1999) began painting later in life. He was 70 years old when he first crossed the threshold of Bruno Gérard’s workshop, La Pommeraie, where the latter had already been resident for decades. His work, now circulated widely, is represented in numerous public and private collections. It remains completely in the artistry of drawing and painting, ad libitum, the same motifs which are used endlessly, always identical and always different, essentially, faces and doors with the same interior motifs which are also on show on his page, – Paul Duhem hoc fecit ! – through the intelligent, non-exhaustive range of colours and variations, continually leading to the action and daily ritual of painting, with the same ethos and the same tools – pencils, paintbrushes, set squares and protractors, a tin of sardines – where there are deposits of the pigments. In the morning: three paintings and three others in the afternoon, every day in the workshop for ten years until the artist passed away in 1999, the act of painting, which could have infinitely continued but was simply suspended. In his handbook, Poteaux d’angle, Henri Michaux gives artists one simple piece of advice: “Keep things on a short leash.” Looking at Paul Duhem’s paintings, maybe we can dream of a better resonance? Duhem does keep things on a short leash and gives each one of us the freedom to experience the faces, presence and sentiments of our own existence in each of our viewings.
© Paul Duhem, Atelier : La Pommeraie, Ellignies-Sainte-Anne (B)
