ABDALLAH BENANTEUR, The Song of the Earth. Retrospective-Tribute.
Exhibition from June 9 to September 9. 2018.
Free Entrance.
Claude Lemand:
The Museum of Saint-Roch Hospice in Issoudun will pay tribute to the great painter Abdallah Benanteur (1931-2017) by organising the first retrospective after he passed away. A selection of outstanding works will be showcased in its premises, representing all the stages of his œuvre, from his arrival date in Paris in 1953 until he ceased painting in January 2012 : 51 paintings (some of which are monumental) and 57 works on paper including prints, drawings, watercolours, gouaches and artist’s books.
Born in 1931 in Mostaghanem, Abdallah Benanteur was brought up in an Algerian family and cultural environment, specifically enthralled by writing and illuminated manuscripts, by mystic Muslim poetry, by Andalusian music and songs. After completing his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Oran and his military service, he settled down in Paris in 1953, which he transformed into his own capital of life and creativity. Abdallah Benanteur passed away on 31 December 2017, at Ivry-sur-Seine, France.
Impregnated by the Arab culture from his native Algeria, by the great European painting in museums across France and Europe, by the graphic arts and manuscripts from Europe, the East and the Far East, inspired by the poets from around the world - having become a true expert in that field thanks to his wife Monique Boucher - he managed to create his own personal and sublime works, producing lyrical landscapes infused with the light of his Mediterranean homeland and that of his adopted Brittany, as well as a transcendental light that transforms the memory’s landscapes in a paradise peopled by his beloved ‘chosen’ ones’. Abdallah Benanteur’s true light is in his oeuvre and varies depending on different periods. This light is from here and from elsewhere, « neither Oriental nor Western”, illuminating those whose gaze is in harmony with it.
Available Publications:
BENANTEUR, Paintings. Monograph edited and published by Claude Lemand, 224 pages in colour, 25 x 33 cm. Texts in French and in English. Paris, 2002. ISBN 2-910263-00-2.
BENANTEUR, Œuvres graphiques. Monograph edited and published by Claude Lemand, 288 pages in colour, 25 x 33 cm. Texts in French and in English. Paris, 2005. ISBN 2-910263-02-9.
Abdallah BENANTEUR, Le Chant de la Terre. Rétrospective-Hommage. Text by Emmanuel Daydé. Catalogue 112 pages, 21 x 29,7 cm. Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch, City of Issoudun, France.
