Gérard Garouste

His allegorical paintings were first shown in 1980 at the  Durand-Dessert Gallery in Paris. Drawing inspiration from the Bible, popular culture, and great texts from Miguel de Cervantes to François Rabelais, his works were institutionally recognised in 1987 by the CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain in Bordeaux, France, and the Fondation Cartier in 1988. Garouste went on to create décors and designs for the Elysée Palace, the ceiling of the Théâtre de Namur, stained-glass windows in the church of Notre Dame de Talant, and even the stage curtain at the Théâtre du Châtelet. In 1991, he founded La Source, an association devoted to helping children who have been marginalised, or from underprivileged backgrounds to develop personally and express themselves through artistic workshops. In 2009, he published a revealing tell-all autobiography, L’Intranquille: Autoportrait d’un Fils, d’un Peintre, d’un Fou.

En 1988, The Fondation Cartier presented Les Indiennes, large-format canvases inspired by Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The works are set out so as to invite the viewer on a meditative journey, transforming the space into a series of intimate scenes full of images, similar to an ambulatory in a cathedral. In 2001, in the exhibition Ellipse, Garouste presented a new monumental installation made up of fifty-four panels, an assemblage of canvases creating walls inhabited by animals from fables, calling to mind the tents and follies of 18th-century gardens.