The exhibition on the painter Jean Ségalat ends on September 14 at the Aspibd museum in Decazeville. And it is a great success.
Claire, the daughter of the painter Jean Ségalat (1926-1987), and Alain Rieu, owners of the paintings, expressed their desire to see them exhibited in a museum. They found an attentive ear in the person of Jean-Pierre Vaur, president of Aspibd (Association for the Preservation of the Industrial Heritage of the Decazeville-Aubin Basin).
And, since the beginning of July, the public can feel in the Aspibd museum all the emotion that emanates from these works (about fifteen paintings exhibited), in particular the poetic vision of Decazeville in the 1950s. This production brings among other things an undeniable historical and documentary contribution to our locality. The public is there, with regular visitors including many inhabitants of the Bassin who for many discover this talented artist, whose name is perpetuated in Decazeville through a room and a space.
He also has a blue period
Jean Ségalat’s first works, from 1949 to 1954, deliver portraits, workers’ houses, factories with panting chimneys that were to become his favorite subjects. This is the delightful period that we can call “blue”, because streets and houses are bathed in a fog of this color, or the landscapes are lit by one of those stormy glimmers that suddenly illuminate the horizon. Leonardo da Vinci was right to say that “painting is poetry that can be seen”. He took part in his first exhibitions in Bordeaux and in Paris at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture. From the mid-1950s, his line became thicker and outlined the figures, accentuating the motifs of factories and workers.
Major artist
Nature also becomes more prominent. The following decade, the artist devoted himself to drawing and particularly to Conques. As the art critic Gilbert Bou wrote so well, “Jean Ségalat draws at the speed of writing”.
In the early 1970s, he depicted medieval pilgrims and religiously inspired themes. “Let’s not look for a message, for him the landscape and what he saw were states of mind and what he painted was the reflection of his own life”added Gilbert Bou.
Jean Ségalat was recognized as a major artist of his time and he deserved more light and recognition. This exhibition seeks to do just that.
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