Biography
1923
Birth of Jean Olivier Hucleux in Chauny (Oise department - France), where his father runs an engineering
workshop
1928-1935
After the birth of his younger brother, the family moves from Chauny to Conflans.
Jean Olivier
goes to live with his maternal grandmother,who designs and manufactures
earthenware products
with Delaherche in La Chapelle-aux6Pots.
1935-1939
Secondary educationas a boarder at the institution Saint-Joseph ,which is housed
in the Mesnières
Château (Normandy)
1939-1941
he works in the Broca’s workshop in Paris as a photo-retoucher.During this same
period he takes
up painting, working at it during the night . He goes to a few lessons at the
beaux-Arts school, but this
peters out.He paints Paysage de Montfort L’Amaury which he signs Jean Julien
Olivier , and does some paintings in the manner of Vlaminck (he also pays a
visit to the latter during
his retirement) . He sells his first paintings - a study of vegetation , a ‘
Portrait of his house’ and a
Portrait of his mother- to a baker in the Ile Saint Louis in Paris .
1942-1944
In order to avoid the STO (the labour service set up by the Germans)he hides out
in
Chèvremont, where his parents are living in a house built by his father ,which
has a secret
trapdoor.He only comes out at night.He paints with the limited means that are
available to him
He returns to Paris, and goes back to working for de Broca a photo-retoucher .
He continues to paint
1945
He discusses painting with André Raffray, and buys books on the subject . His
first impulses
take in the direction of Gauguin and Memling ,to whom he pays tribute in a
Autoportrait .
He also develops and interest in Van Gogh and the Fauvists, from Derain to Van
Dongen via
Camoin;, as well as Matisse and Picasso . He ‘does research , experiments ;he
learns to paint in a
very short time’ .He gives lessons at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière ,
where he meets
Friesz. Among he studies ‘Le Marinier .(The Bargee) ,which is the first of his
painting to be executed
on the basis of a photograph .
1947
He leaves de Broca’s workshop , and goes back to Conflans, where he works with
his parents, does
photo-retouching, and becomes a professional photographer . He paints only afex
pictures , which
he subsequently destroys. Depression . He stops painting .’Works at a variety of
trades .
1965
Hucleux marries Jeanne. He continues to lend a helping hand in the family
business, along with his
wife .
1956
Birth of Jean-Louis
1958
Birth of Emmanuel
1965
He has a stall at the Biron flea market, where he displays and sells unusual
objects dating from
Napoleon 3 or the 1900s .His friend André Raffray introduces him to the critic
Jacques Caumont.
1968
After the death of his mother,he goes to live in Andresy.He takes up painting
once more ,then
starts exhibiting .’In the same way that other people’s paintings are based on
nature, his paintings
are based on photograph’s’. He does a Portrait de la femme de l’artiste and
Entrée de village .
1971
He paints,in oil on wood (plywood) the Portrait de Jean-Pierre Raynaud (after a
photograph by
Daniel Pype)and Cimetière de voitures , which are done under projection. He
begins the series of
Cimetières, which continues from then until 1976 .
1972
He paints the huge (200 x 300 cm) Cimetière n° 1 , 2 and 3 in oil on wood .
Documenta 5 in Kassel,
organised by Harald Szeemann , has a ‘Realismus’ section, which is presented by
Jean-Christophe Ammann , and it is here that Hucleux’s Cimetière de voitures and
Cimetière n° 1
are exhibited for the first time (they are also reproduced in the catalogue).On
the occasion of
this exhibition, Hucleux meets Joseph Beuys and Marcel Broadthers . The
Cimetière n°1 is used in
the July-August issue of Studio International to illustrate an article by Jürgen
Harten, ‘’Documenta 5
in Kassel’, then as the frontispiece to Bernhard Kerber’s text ‘Documenta 5
und Szene Rhein-Ruhr’ in the October edition of Art International , it also
appears in the same
month’s Bollafiarte . In the September issue of Domus , under the title “Les
limites du
comportement”( The limits of Behaviour’), Pierre Restany talks about
‘Jean-Christophe Ammann ,
thanks to whom Documenta 5 ended up as a triumph for American hyperrealism
(...).
Happy the few Europeans , such as Gerhard Richter, Franz G ertsch (...) , Markus
Raetz and good
old pap a Hucleux , who are also in the running .They have a head’s start on
their bunch of
bollowers , who will be legion in a few months” .
1973
Hucleux paints Cimetière n°4, and starts work on Cimetière n°5. He participates
in various
exhibitions : “Ekstrem Realism”, at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek ( with
Cimetière n°1 which
has been acquired by Professor Ludwig for his collection),’ Werkelijkheid is
meervoud.
Realism uit de verzameling Ludwig , Neue Galerie Aachen’, at the Groninger
Museum voor Stad en
Lande ,Groningen,as well as “”Monumente” (which has a text by J& J in the
catalogue), with his five
Cimetières, and “Prospect 73” both at the Stâdlische Kunsthalle un Düsseldorf .
The Cimetière de voitures joins the Sara Hilden collection in Finland . The
Cimetière n °1 (détail)
is reproduced on the cover of Peter Sager’s monograph Neue Formen des Realismus,
Kunst
zwischen illusion und Wirklichkeit,which devotes a few lines to him .
In February 1973 , Cimetière n° 2 is reproduced on the cover of a special issue
of l’Art Vivant
devoted to hyperrealism, to which Jean Clair contributes an important article on
Hucleux
(see critical Reception). In August ,the same reviews’Vademecum of exhibitions’
presents
“Monumente”, which being held in the Städtische Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf , and ,
in particular,
‘the series of five Cimetières which Jean Olivier Hucleux has just completed .;
these may well turn
out to be the high point of the exhibition (...) . Speaking of which , when will
we finally be able to see
them in Paris ?
Who will dare to exhibit them, rather than always serving us up the same thing,
commemorating the
same
people, monumentalising the same predictable geniuses, museifying the same
inevitable glories?
The non-specialist German press (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , 2 october
1973 ) mentions
the
‘macabre’ studies done by Hucleux , this ‘painter of Cemeteries’ (die Welt , 10
october 1073)
1974
He does Cimetière n°6 and begins a series of portraits painted life-size in oil
on wood, including the
Portrait d’Etienne Martin, which he finishes the following year , and an
Autoportrait.He takes part in
the exhibitions ‘Art conceptuel et hyperrealiste . Collection Ludwig, Neue
Galerie , Aix La Chapelle’ at
the ARC/ Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris , ‘Ars 74’ at the Museum of
Helsinki and Tampere
(with Cimetière de voitures and Cimetière n°5 ) and “Aachen International 70_74
,Works from
Ludwig Collection’ , at the Royal Scottisch Academy in Edinburgh.
Domus,which has chosen the same subject . Gilbert Lascaut writes a text on the
Cimetières
(see Critical Reception).In the April issue of l’Art Vivant , Jean Clair ,
writing about the exhibition of the
Ludwig collection at the ARC in an article entitled “Situation des Realismes de
la Neue Sachlichkeit
à l’hyperréalime “ defends Hucleux ,’ about whom one may think what one likes,
and whose early
career one may talk about ironically, in typical *arisian fashion- but it is
clear, fot those who have
eyes to see , that the Cimetières series is one of the most phenomenal things to
have been
produced in the field of realist illusion in the last ten years.”.
1975
He starts work in a commission to paint the Portrait du Professeur Ludwig et de
sa femme Irena
otherwise known as the Portrait des Ludwig, which he finishes the following year
and which is
included in the Ludwig Collection in Aachen.
He participates, along with Adami, Alechinsky, Arikha, Arroyo, Auerbach, Bacon,
Blake, Dubuffet,
Freud, Hélion, Heyboer, Hockney, Kitaj, Miro, and Segui in the exhibition of
‘European Painting in the 70’s by Sixteen Artists ‘, organised by Maurice
Tuchman at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art; this exhibition subsequently moves to the St
Louis Art Museum,
then to Elvehjem Art Center (see Critical Reception).
L’Art Vivant gives over its January issue to the subject of death , with Gilbert
Lascault discussing
some of its representations .’No ornament in the house , except for a large
portrait of
J.P.Raynaud ( painted by Hucleux) : the painter is represented in his own black
and white residence
-
a pale individuale , dressed in black ‘. The article is accompanied by a
full-page photograph of the
figure painted in a standing position in his habitual surroundings..In the
October issue of ARTnews,
Robert Hughes commenting on the Los Angeles exhibition ( ‘European
Painting:Masters and Maverick’s) , pick out ,among the artists on show, Hucleux,
whose two
Cimetières were ‘ the shockers of this show’, and in whom one can see , as in
Bacon and
Dubuffet, ‘the deadness of feeling’’. Peter Plagens ,in highly critical mood in
the January 1976 issue
Artforum - while recognising that with the two Cimetières ,which are ‘in a way
impressive’,
Hucleux ‘admittedly , really gets it’ - nonetheless disputes the success of the
Autoportrait and
the Portrait d’Etienne Martin . For Plagens , Hucleux does not stand up to a
comparison with other
realists such as Estes, Pearlstein or Katz .
1976
He paints the Cimetière n°7- the last Cof the series.
In the Venice Biennial he exhibits C imetière n°7 and the Portrait des Ludwig ,which
is reproduced
in the catalogue ( with a text by the artist- see Critical Reception ) as well
as in the September issue
of Das Kunstwerk ,which is devoted to the FIAC , and to the Venice Biennial. In
December , Alain
Jouffroy, talking about the Collections of the Musée National d’Art moderne in
an article in XXème (
‘Le CNAC Georges Pompidou : un appareil idéologique d’Etat’), notes that ‘one
can feel satisfied
about the entry of fifteen American artists, but there is also the very
significant absence of the
European figurative painters who, since 1960 , have imposed a new form on
history painting, with
the exception of french hyperréalist Hucleux ‘, whose Cimetière n°6 has been
owned by the CNAC
since 1975 .
1977
Hucleux does the Portrait de Jean Le Gac
He participates in an exhibition of contemporary art at the Museum of Modern Art
in Belgr -ade. The
exhibition catalogue contains a text by J.&J. 1976 and Cimetiére n°5. He also
takes part in a
presentation of the Ludwig collection, under the title ‘Kunst um 1970.
Sammlung Ludwig,witch is reproduced in the catalogue.and the same work also
features (along
with Cimetiére n°1) in Wofgang Becker’s Der ausgestelte Künstler.Museumkunst
seit 1945, and in
the review Aachen Bilder und Berichte, which puts the work on its cover
1979
There is a retrospective at the Center Georges Pompidou (with Chuck Close and
John De Andrea)
entitled ‘Copie conforme ?, at the invitation of Pontus Hulten, who contributes
a written ‘Portrait’ to the
exhibition catalogue (which also includes an interview with Jennifer
Gouth-Cooper and Jacques
Caumont, and a text by Jean Duvallet; see Critical Reception for the first and
the last ones).The
Autoportrait, along with the Portrait d’Etienne-Martin and that
of Les Jumelles, figures in ‘La Famille des portraits’ at the Musée des Arts
Décoratifs, whose
director is François Mathey, and Cimetiére n°1 is included in ‘Neue
Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig.
Eine Austtellung der Stadt Aachen’ at the Landesvertretung Nordrhein Wesfalen in
Bonn.
The Beaubourg exibition gives rise to numerous articles in daily and weekly
publications, as well as
in the specialist press.For Pierre Cabanne, in Le Matin of 27 April, ‘Hucleux is
deliberately
self-effacing, in that he wants to be external to the work, as an officer of the
law is when making an
observation which is not a product of his own activy but that of a fatality of
which he is the instrument.
As a space of regret and nostalgia, the cemetery is also bastardised, in which
the apparance of the
deceased person, and thus of life, is perpetuated by
simulacra-and this is what is done by art which is no more, in the end, than a
rigged reality.’
For Geneviève Breerette, in Le Monde of 3 May: There is death in all that, and a
story of
identity.(...)Hucleux’s Jumelles are not an instrument to be used for seeing
better and from closer
up,but two little painted girls who are similar, or nearly so.And this
introduces a disturbing
note.Which one is the other? Where is the model?Were is the true? Where is the
painter?The graves
in Hucleux’s Cimetiere series remain mute.’For Otto Hahn, in L’Express of 19-25
May, ‘Hyperrealism,
which has always developed in the margins of artistic reflexion,thus persues its
lonely path, holding
to a single fantasy: to make something “living” with inert forms of matter.’ For
Mondher Ben Milad, in
the May issue of the Cahiers de la peinture, ‘Hucleux’s
works, portraits or cimeteries, will impress you; they are ceremonius, and have
a subtle, insidious
way of leading the viewer to approach their subject with a certain protocol,
suggesting to him not
gravity, but the importance of what he sees. Even the Jumelles, two cute little
girls, express, despite
their age, the domineering dignity of official portraits. Perhaps, in the end,
they are two infantas of France, and Hucleux is a Velasquez who has knowm
photography and this
century’. The summer issue of Pantheon reproduced the -Portrait des Ludwig as an
accompaniment to the announcement by Ingrid Rein of the opening, in Vienna, of
the
Österreichisches Museum Moderner Kunst, where the portrait is being presented.
1980
Hucleux paints the Portrait de Paul Bocuse.
The Portrait des Ludwig is reproduced in the catalogue for the ‘10 Jahre Neue
Galerie- Sammlung
Ludwig Aachen 1970-1980’ exibition. The artist is one of the painters mentioned
by Christine Lindey
in her monograph Superrrealist Painting & Sculpture (Orbis Publishing, London).
She describes him
as being ‘almost perverse in its literal, objects.’
1981
He begins painting the Portrait de Pontus Hulten, which he finishes the
following year (see
Contemporary Commentaries),and also the Portrait de Sophie.
1982
He participates in the touring exhibition ‘Figuration révolutionaire de Cézanne
à nos jours’ in Tokyo
and Hiroshima, with Cimetière n°6. ‘challenged by the means put to work by
painting,as Alain
Jouffroy writes in the exposition catalogue, photography is beaten as this
point. It might however be
noted that the subject of the picture, that part of the cemetery where two new
graves are masked by
the same sheet, brings up the idea that, which”realist” painting being long dead,
it is the turn of painting that is “hyperrealist” (in the same way that one
might say “hyperrealist”) to
take in hand its own burial-and in this respect one must not simply think of
Courbet’s Enterrement à
Ormans.’
1983
He start work on the Portrait de Jeanne Hucleux-’work in progress’
1984
He paints the portrait du Président Georges Pompidou,which is a public
commission.
He takes part in the ‘Sur Invitation’ exibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs
(whose catalogue
includes a reproduction of the Portrairt de Paul Bocuse).
1985
He starts work on the Portrait du Président François Mitterrand (a public
commission),which he
completes the following year, and is also commissioned by the Ministère de la
Culture to produce a
bronze sculpture, Hommage à Louis Aragon. He does an Autoportrait drawn in
pencil on paper for the “ Autoportraits Contemporains. 80 oeuvres sur papier”
exhibition
at the Musée-Galerie de la Seïta in paris, and is quoted in the catalogue .
My thinking,which is exercised according to a precise code, intensifies a charge
up to the
final resemblance, which is presence, as opposed to representation,which is the
destruction of the
image”.This initial drawn portrait prefigures the series of effigies which are
to be
produced by the use of the technique,but in a more hightly perfected form,
starting the following year
. He participates in the “Du côté d’ailleurs”exhibition at the Refectoire des
Jacobins in Toulouse, with Cimetière n° 7 and the Portrait de Jean Le Gac.
1986
He starts workon the portraits in pencil on paper that are intended for the
Galerie Beaubourg’s
exhibitionat the Fiac in 1987.among these is an Autoportrait, and the Portraits
of Marcel Duchamp
(after a photograph by rogi Andre) and henri Matisse (after a photograph by
Rogi André ),Pablo Picasso ( after a photograph by Brassaî), Antonin Artaud (
after a photograph by
Denise Colomb) , Francis Bacon (after a photograph Michel Nguyen) and
Alberto Giacomettei (after a photograph by Sabine Weiss).He participates in the
“Qu’est-ce que l’Art
Français?” exhibition a the CRAC Midi-Pyrenées, Labège-Innopole (Toulouse), then
exhibits in l’’Autre Musée’ in Brussels .
The Catalogue for the ‘Qu’est-ce que l’Art Français’?’ exhibition ( published by
the Editions
de la Difference) includes Les Jumelles ,the Portrait d’Etienne Martin, the
Autoportrait and Cimetière
n° 7 ,as well as a text by Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, and in interview with Hucleux
by the author.
In the issue of Pictura Magazine , Lamarche-Vadel presents the painter thus:’But
has this most
clandestine of French artists ever been heard ; has a wqork done by his hand
ever been looked at in
France?(....) Hucleux’s problematic aims at producinga series of indiscernible
links between reality
and representation ,through a process of transfer .(...) For Hucleux ,thanks to
the gift of unlimited
concentration, it is a question of producing the experience of an absolute
collision between the appearance of reality in the plenitude of its grain , of
its texture, and the image
that he forms of it - and this with the aiming of producing such a correlation
of reality and its picture ,
a double so powerful and so meticulously-detailed, that rhe space between
reality and picture will be
an absolutely indifferent space that will do away with the necessity of making a
picture .
In this sense, a hyperrealist picture, for Hucleux, is simply a spoiled picture,
since his undertaking is
a process of going beyo nd, by the means of the representation itself, in the
mystery of a density that is shared between reality and its double. Yes, ,art
must firstly work against
art ; this is only way o being in art’ .
1987
He completes the series of eleven portraits drawn in pencil on paper which, with
the Galerie
Beaubourg , he is to exhibit at the FIAC :there are Portraits of Yves Klein (after
a photograph
by Shunk and Kender), Andy Warhol (after a photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni),
Samuel Beckett
(after a photograph Fisèle Freund) , and Joseph Beuys ( after a photograph by
Alice Springs)
The book-catalogue of the exhibition is published by the editions de la
Différence
under the title Hucleux , 12 dessinssuivis du catalogue de l’oeuvre , with a
text by Bernard Lamarche
Vadel (see Critical Reception), and reproductions of the drawn Autoportraits of
1985 and 1986 ,
along with all the portraits drawn in pencil since the previous year.
Hucleux also participates in the exhibition “Kunst heute in Frankreich ,
Sammlung Ludwig Aachen”,
in Haus Metternich Koblenz, and the Leopold-Hoesch Museum ,Düren ,with
In its spring issue the review Cardinaux , published by Maegnt , has a text by Hucleux ,’Prière
d’insérer’ (see Critical Reception ) .
In October ,on the occasion of the FIAC , Connaissance des Arts puts the Portrait d’Alberto
Giacometti on its cover , and publishes a long article by Pascal Bonnafoux, “Jean-Olivier Hucleux ,.
Jeu de l’oie des apparences en forme de cercle vicieux.”, accompanied by reproductions of the
Portraits of Artaud, Bacon and Picasso , an Autoportrait, and details from the Portraits of Beuys and
Beckett.On 19 October, LeMatin de Paris has an article by Maîten Bouisset
on “Le Bilan de la FIAC .Quand la bour’se plonge, l’art s’envole “,beginning with “An
exceptional FIAC “ for Pierre and Marianne Nahon of the Galerie Beaubourg, who are preenting
César and Hucleux . There are the eleven portraits (around FFr 2o00.00) , all of which have been
sold except for that of Joseph Beuys.’.
In December’s art press , Jean-Louis Pradel draws a paralell between the ‘improbable realities’ of
Chuck Close and Jean-Olivier Hucleux . In l’Art Contemporain en France (published by
éditions Flammarion ) , Catherine Millet talks about ‘ an unclassifiable body of work, even if it shares
with the new subhectivity a concern to coîncide with reality
Slowly , with prodigious precision, Jean Olivier Hucleux paints rare portraits which “wake up” to life
the subjects who posed for the photographs which were the basis for his work .(...).If anything, one
could say that the code obliterates itself ; fascinated by resemblance, habituated to no longer
putting any trust in
photography, one does not manage to “believe” that one is standing in front of a painting. Hucleux is
only
painter who is capable of denouncing photographic pseudo-faithfulness’.
1988
He starts work on a pencil Portrait de François Mitterand,which he finishes the following year ,.He
does pencil Portraits of louis Ferdinand Céline , César , Jean-Luc Godard, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel
and Pieet Mondrian (which he finishes in 1990).
He does a Bronze sculpture , Sans titre n°2.
He participates in the ‘Hommage à Picasso’ exhibition at the Musées Picasso in Antibes,
then in Veruela and Huesca in Spain ; the Spanish catalogue contains a reproduction of the
Portrait de Pablo Picasso n°1 .The drawn Portraits of Duchamp, Warhol, Beuys , and Klein feature
on the cover ‘ and in the interior) of Bernard Lamarche Vadel ‘s M.AJ.Y.MAGIE , which is
published by the Editions de la Difference.
Gilbert Lascaut , in the January issue of Reseau , which has a reproduction of a Portrait d’Henri
Matisse on the cover, gives ‘ Une selection d’artistes ‘from the 1987 FIAC; and Pierre Cabanne, in
December’s “Fortune de France “ ,quotes the prices of Hucleux’s painted portraits, which are
estimated at FFr I,5 m.
1989
On 20 April ,the High Court in Paris delvers its verdict in a case broughtby the photographers
June Newton ( known as Alice Springs) and Gisèle Freund against Jean Olivier Hucleux and the
Galerie beaubourg .At the end of 1987 Alice Springs ,the author of the photography of Joseph Beuys
has protested against the use of this photograph in the execution of a portrait of the artist drawn by
Hucleux.
She was then joined by Gisèle Freund ( with the same argument being applied to a photograph of
Samuel Beckett that was used for a drawn portrait of the writer ) in a joint suit
against Hucleux and his gallery, which accused him of counterfeiting.
The photographers requested, notably, after an official observation by a bailiff of the sale of the
drawn Portrait de Joseph Beuys to the Fonds regional d’art contemporain Centre in Orléans for a
price of FFr 150.000 ,than an equal amount be set aside for payment to match any revenues
that might accrue from the representation, reproduction or sale of drawings reproduced without their
authorisation.
In the course of the debate , Gisèle Freund does not produce the photographic portrait of which she
is the author ,and her case is dismissed ; but the referred verdict orders Hucleux and his gallery to
pay Alice Springs an indemnity of FFr r50.000. .On 13 June , Hucleux and
the galerie Beaubourg lodge an appeal. He does the pencil Portrait d’Arman (after a photograph by
Ewa Rudling ), and also the Portrait de Pablo Picasso n° 2 ( after a photograph by André Villiers) ,
which is exhibited aqt the inauguration of the Musée départemental of the Jura in 1992 . He starts
work on a series of Dessins de déprogrammation ( Deprogramming Drawings) in ink and Indian ink
on paper,which he continues to work at from this time on .
In l’Evènement du Jeudi ,Jean-Louis Pradel devotes an article to ‘Un peintre fou de perfection’ :
‘Today, Hucleux is turning to sculpture . He will sculpt lead,”the colour of a stormy sky “.(.....).
With sculpture , lead becomes vertical .This passage from the horizontal to the vertical, from
drawing to sculpture, “ draws the sign+.......
Which is found at the heart of the apple that on shares - at the heart, more precisely, of the strange
pentagon which is described by the emplacement of the pips, and which one finds again , the other
way round , in the tiaras that bishops wear”’.
1990
he does the Portrait de Marcel Duchamp n°2 (after a photograph in the Archives of the
CentreGeorges Pompidou), Roy Lichtenstein (after a photograph by Harry Shunk), Andy Warhol
n°2 ( after a photograph by Harry Shunk ) and Pablo Picasso n°3 (after a photograph by Harry
Shunk).He executes another sculpture in bronze, Sans titre n°2 .He participates in the exhibition ‘
Le visage dans l’Art Contemporain ‘ at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris . In the June issue of art
press, Catherine Millet ,treating of ‘ La Justice à l’ère de la reproductibilité technique des images ‘
(see Critical Reception), reacts sharply to the verdict delivered the previous year against Hucleux,
who, though he acknowledges ‘the error commited in omitting to obtain the authorisation of Alice
Springs and Gisèle Freund’ , nonetheless disputes ‘ totally the “counterfeiting”charge .The names of
Alice Springs and Gisèle Freund are cited in the catalogue. there is no camouflage. Furthermore, the
work I do is in no way that of counterfeiting photos , and anyone
who takes it as such obviously knows very little about me .’
1991
On 21 January,the Paris appeal court partly confirms the verdict handed down in 1989 , ordering
Hucleux and the Galerie Beaubourg to pay a sum of FFr 30.000 to each of the two photographers
who initially brought the suit against him.His lawyer attemps in vain to make something of the fact
that the artist’ did not reproduce these photographs, but transfigured them ; uncovering, behind the
flat vignette of faithful mechanical reproduction ,the life of the subject ‘ .
A ruling pronounced on March 1991 firstly considers’that it is neither the technical means
employed,nor the format of the photograph, thatis protected by the law of 1957, ,but the creation
which bears the stamp of his author, revealed by the choices in the play of shadows and lignt, the
framing, the environment of the subject, his bearing, and the expression, sometimes so fleeting, of a
face; that it is just
this that determined the choice that Hucleux made of the photographs of Alice Springs and Gisèle
Freund, and that the legal problem -on which the numerous testimonials to his morals and talent
have no bearing - is whether he had the right to reproduce their photographs without their
authorisation, given thaht reproduction ,as defined by article 28 of the law, can be carried out notably
by drawing,and in no way postulates the similarity of nature claimed by the appelants.’ Then it
establishes that ‘Hucleux cannot
given that he acknowledges the fact of having executed his drawing “on the basis of the photograph”,
criticise the verdict , in that he has described as a second work his drawing, which, as far as the law
of 1957 is concerned, appears to be a derived work, in that one finds in it, in terms of expression,all
the characteristics of photography ,given that the enlargements submitted to the court, containing
certain details of the drawn portrait,do not provide a contrary demonstration ; and there is no question
of denying the work of the draughtsman,or his share of creation ,the derived works constituting
original works, which are also protected by the author’s rights.’ Also : ‘It appears , from Hucleux ‘s
work process, that his creation demands the appropriation of the very very form of creation previously
revealed by Alice Springs and Gisèle Freund by identical reproduction,which cannot be admitted
outside of the authorisation of the author of the first work , when this is not in the public domain’.
The July-August issue of art press contains a file put together by Vivet Kanetti on ‘ Le Droit moral
des Artistes’.
Here, Hucleux is still claiming that he has ‘a lot of respect for photographs that I work on,and the
name of the photographer is always given on the back or to the side of my drawings, as well as in the
catalogues. I do not at all consider myself to be a counterfeiter . In my work ,I am pursuing other
intentions than those of a photographer’.
Since the start of the affair , numerous personalities from the art world have praised Hucleux’s
approach, and have stood up in his defence, including artists ( Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Jean-Michel
Sanejouand, Christian Boltansky ), the legatees of deceased artists (Eva beuys , Rotraut
Klein-Mocquay), museum curators (Alain Sayag, Jean-Hubert Martin, and others), gallery owners
(Loïc Malle , and also jean François Jaeger , who frequented the photographer Rogi André) , critics
(Ramon Tio Bellido, the president of the AICA , the French section of the international art critics’
association- ) a publisher (Philippe Sers), an exhibition curator( Harald
Szeemann), a collector (Professor Ludwig)- and even the President of the Republic , François
Mitterand .
Among the messages addressed to Hucleux ,there is that of the critic Pierre Restany, who
comments that ‘numerous artists draw inspiration from photographic documents when they do
portraits .(...)One cannot really talk about plagiarism in this regard, the basic photographic document
being, at most, an objective reference .A drawing or a canvas that is the final result of the operation
is absolutely distinct from the primary document. The difference is organic and structural : it bears ,
in the first place , on the material and the medium, then on the subjectivetreatment of the image,and
, finally on the talent ( or absence of talent) of the Artist.’
For Eva Beuys , who is Joseph Beuys ‘s widow , and who represents his succession , Hucleux’s
work ‘have a quite clear artistic style .(...) It is thus beyond doubt that your work on Joseph Beuys
represents a style in the history of art which makes a personal contribution such that something
new , by its very essence, has been born, in relation to the photographic subject .(...)
The appropriate legal expression would no doubt be “ free artistic adaptation”.
François Mathey, the head curator of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, stresses the fact that’ the use of
a basic document is practical, virtually indispensable to the portraitist who cannot impose on his
subject an irksome daily posing session lasting for hours, over a period of weeks or months .(...)The
particular nature
of the document, anonymous or not , was of no great concern to you, in the end . what you were
looking for was the best approach to the subject who interested you .So you can anlyse it
methodically, scrupulously, and pursue, cm2 by cm2 , an invisible reality that you stalk through the
profoundest dephts of the grain of your drawing paper.
It is an exhausting adventure,and one which is disturbing ; in its excess ,it has to do with something
close to fantasy.But thus it is that , whatever may be your subjects, which are necessarily different(
as , consequently, are your reference photographs ), the moment one sees your portraits , the name
of Hucleux immediately comes to mind. This is how one recognises the authenticity of the creator .. I
owed you this statement’.
For Didier Semin , the ‘ false quarrel’ that is directed against hucleux is ‘ neither morally admissible
nor theoretically founded .(...) It seems to me that there is no reason why you should suffer on
account of a transfer into the legal domain of a debate on the definition of the work of art which has
agitated the world of painting since the start of the century .(...) The debate about the difference
between the painted image and the photographic image is fascinating and complex. ; it is the very
point at issue for much of contemporary art, and your work contributes a building-block to this
edifice .
To want ,all of a sudden, to come down on one side or another, to withdraw from the field of reflection
and research, to decided in law what has to take precedence - the photographer’s work of framing
and lighting, or the hours and hours of Sisyphean work with the pencil which are the painter’s share
(yours in this case)- seems to me to be a very stupid thing.’
Dominique Bozo, the head of the Délégation des Arts Olastiques, states : ‘You produce these
effigies with the means that are characteristic of your art, i.e. those of painting , this art which
produces a specificity characteristic of each cm2 of drawing , of area, of matter, an organic
specificity dus to the work of the hand, to matter mastered in the construction of a totality that is
produced gesture by gesture.
And it is this totality that results in there being painting, in the carnal, physical sense of what one
knows
painting to be .You talk about the phenomenon of membranity. And this is indeed what is at the
origin of the painting . Here is where that is not it . And when that is , that is still it in a way which is
characteristic of each painting. It is also , and still more so , what decides that it is a painting by
Hucleux , and no one else
-the style and particularism of each work , and , withinit, of each cm 2 due to your hand your painter’s
eye , your ability to attain , or approach , your project . The almost -carnal life of the painting . Before
beinf the cathedral of Rouen ,it is a painting by Monet that one sees .It is a painting , Monet’s
painting., that imposes itself on us .One is very far ,it seems to me , from counterfeiting ! And yet
this is what you are accused of ?In any case , your work remains unique .’
Hucleux does the Portrait of Claude Vasconi (after a photograph by Hucleux and Laure Vasconi) ,
the Portrait d’Yves Klein n°2 (After a photograph by Harry Shunk), and the Autoportrait n°3 (after a
photograph by Jeanne Hucleux) . The Galerie Beaubourg presents his drawings , and the Galerie
Montaigne exhibits his first Dessins de déprogrammation under the title “La Figure et le Nombre “
(the catalogue includes an interview with the artist by Loïc Malle ; see Critical Reception). Hucleux
participates in the collective exhibitions ‘Kunst heute in Frankreich ‘, in Koblenz , and ‘Objets trouvés
d’Artistes ‘ , at the Galerie du Jour
in Paris, where he exhibits a pebble marked with a cross ( Having come out of the angle the drop
flees the water jumps over the fire lies down on the sea gets married and unknots criss-crosses
like boxwood geometrically’) . Hucleux also appears at the FIAC with the Galerie Montaigne
(and the Portrait de Pablo Picasso n°2)is reproduced in the catalogue ).
The first Lyon Biennale d’Art Contemporain, entitled “ L’Amour de l’Art” , includes a drawn
Autoportrait (1986) and the Portraits de Marcel Duchampn1 , Antonin Artaud , Francis Bacon , Alberto
Giacommetti , Yves Klein n° 1 , Louis-Ferdinand Celine , Piet Mondrian , Pablo Picasso N°2 , Maître
Paul Lombard and Claude Vasconi, as well as the sculpture Sans titre n°2 and around twenty
Dessins de Déprogrammation , some of which are reproduced in the catalogue, with a text by
Hucleux himself : “My pencil, a fan emerging fromits case ,its steward, is not a magic wand,it is not a
trigger either, but a blowtorch, I weld .To go silent , I have to do so to learn, to learn to see an eye that
goes silent. To get beyond the zero point of resemblance, an abrasive experience, a singular
counterpart :a card turned face up transmutes the detailinto instant , lead into ash, the image
becoming a place .(...)
Against by vocation my arms are derisory, a pencil, the cacuity of my sheedt of drawing paper , and
myself .My pencil , my brushes are also the hermit’s staff. For seven knots which tie me .
In Artstudio , Denis Hollier , pondering on the question of ‘ Le Portrait Contemporain - Qui
commande?’, mentions some of Hucleux’s painted and drawn portraits ( that of the Ludwigs
illustrates the article) . And Bernadette Bost gives over an article to him in Le Monde ( ‘Les Piliers
de l’énigme’ ; see Critical Reception ) on the occasion of the first Biennale de Lyon.
Hucleux is the subject of an entry in the Dictionnaire de l’Art Moderne et Contemporain (éditions
Hazan) , in which gérard Durozoi notes that he is classified ‘ in hyperrealism by reasonof his
meticulous figuration, But his project is different (...) What i aimed at is thus a presence as dense as
that of a real body , but obtained by the specific means of planeness ‘.
1992
The Portrait de Céline (1988) is auctionned at Drouot on 1 October. Hucleux does the drawn Portrait
s of Jean Cocteau (after a photograph by André Villers) and Jean Tinguely (after a photograph by
Harry Shunk) , and starts that of Roman Opalka , which he completes the following year, along with
the Autoportrait n°4 (after a photograph by Jeanne Hucleux )also known as the Double
Autoportrait.He participates in the exhibition ‘Trouvez l’Artiste ‘ at the Château Saint -Jean in Nogent
-le- Rotrou,and ‘Manifeste’ at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, whith the Portrait de Piet
Mondrian , which is subsequently incorporated into the collections of the Musée National d’Art
Moderne . The Portrait d’Yves Klein n°2 figures in the exhibition ‘le Portrait contemporain ‘at the
Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain in
Nice ; that of Jean Tinguely is presented at the FIAC by the Galerie Montaigne, and the
Portrait de Roy Lichtenstein at the Fondation Asher Edelman in Lausanne . The Portrait de
Jean-Pierre Raynaud illustrates an article by Catherine Francblin on this artist in the June issue of
Art Press,and the Autoportrait n°1 is used for the cover of Léon-Louis Grateloup’s Anthologie
philosophique published by éditions Hachette . In l’Art contemporain depuis 1945 (éditions
Bordas),Jean-louis Pradel , giving his thoughts on Hucleux’s painting , observes, with respect to
Cimetière n°7.It is the beyond itself that is challenged by such performances’, or again, ‘tireless , the
solitude of the painter confronts the impossible each day .
An there is a long article on Hucleux by Karina Esmailzadeh Saee in the catalogue for the Ludwig
Forum für Internationale Kunst in Aachen , which is illustrated by the Cimetière n°5 ,
this article bears on the ‘existensial questions’ which, beyond photo-realism, Hucleux’work
puts to the viewer .
1993
Hucleux does the Portrait de Robert Franck in pencil (after a photograph by marc Trivier) ,; this is a
commission by the Maison Européenne de la photographie, which is to open in 1996 .
He participates in the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in London , where he represents
France in the exhibition ‘The Portrait Now” ( The Portrait des Ludwig and Autoportrait n°4 are
reproduced in the catalogue) , and in the exhibitions ‘Ludwig Lust’ , at the Germanisches National
Museum in Nüremberg , ‘Autoportraits contemporains. here’s Looking at me ‘ , at the ELAC in Lyon (
with the Autoportrait n°4 and the Dessins de déprogrammation n°1 , n°46 and n°70 (1989), which
are reproduced in the catalogue) , and ‘Autour d’Artaud, figures et portraits vertigineux’ at the galerie
de l’Uqam in Montreal, with the Portrait d’Antonin Artaud and a number of Dessins de
Déprogrammation, which belong to a Suite Artaud; he also appearsin ‘Figures et Portraits’ in
Figeac , and ‘ Cathedrale ‘ at the galerie Claudine Papillon in Paris (with a text by Bernard Lamarche
-Vadel on the invitation card), which brings him into the company of Maurice Blaussyld , Jean-Luc
Mylaine and Roman Opalka , and ‘Les Ecarts de l’apparence ‘ at the Grand Palais in Paris . In the
Book Catalogue
Le triomphe du Trompe-L’oeil (Editions Mengès) , Jean Monneret situates Hucleux ‘ outside the
trompe l’oeil, in that he places each of his canvases in a moment of eternity , outside linear , relative
time . He is an alchimist and a medium, transmuting lead into gold , that is to say into silence., in the
place of locks , in each of his paintings , each of his enigmatic Dessins de Déprogrammation, which
give the structure of his work ,and which he alone can decipher’.
In this text ,the author’s idea is to bring out ‘the divergence between the seduction of the realist finish
and the force of the hidden motivations, the essential ideas the poetics, the fecund obsessions -
everything that motivates these painters to use their technique, often right up to the limits of the
trompe-l’oeil , to say something that precedes their art or adds onto it ; this distance finally ,that
exists between the image and its mental texture’.
H ucleux is one of the artists chosen by Connaissance des Arts to celebrate is 500 th issue ; he is
the subject of an entry which is accompanied by his Double-Autoportrait ,and also by a text written by
him for the occasion .’ At the same time that I confront “the Art of the Portrait “, I force myself to move
further and further back from the idea of resemblance , of , mimesis , as some woulf say , in relation
to ,the real subject or photograph .(...) I apply myself to joining yhe unspeakable presence the
animates each being .(...) To paint is a metaphysical act , it gives to seize , to transmute . The
immateriality
of presence is sense, breath, and time’.
1994
The double drawn Portrait de Camille et son père (1994) is cautionned at Drouot on 26 Novembre .
The Portrait d’ Erik Dietman ,done in pencil , presented in the vestibule of the galerie Sud at the
Centre Georges Pompidou , at the entry to the exhibition ‘Erik Dietman , Sans titre .Pas un mot .
Silence !’ Hucleux participates in the joint exhibitions ‘Portraits de femmes’ at the Galerie Beaubourg
in Vence, with the Portrait de Jeanne Hucleux , as well as in ‘Le Portrait contemporain ou le Miroir
éclaté’ at the Fondation Coprim in Paris , and a travelling exhibition in Japan on ‘ The Art of the
Portrait in France in the 19th and 20th Centuries’ , with the Portrait de Paul Bocuse, and the Portrait
de Pablo Picasso n°2.
The painted Portrait du Président François Mitterand illustrates the cover of the January issue of
Elysee Reporter ,and the photograph of François Mitterand used by Hucleux for his drawn Portrait
appears in the December issue .
1995
He does the Portrait de Didier Mauger in pencil .
Six dessins de Déprogrammation ( 1989-1995) are brought into the Collections o the Musée
national d’Art Moderne .
Hucleux’s exhibits ‘Oeuvres choisies (‘Selected Works’ ) at the Musée d’Art Contemporain d’Art
Chailloux, Fresnes , and replies to the questions of Jean Rault and Marcel Lubac on the ‘ pantheon’
of artists on show . ‘You might say that they’re cosmic pillars (...).But what’s important is not that it
should be this one or that one ; what’s important is to paint. When you paint with a pencil (...) there’s
a terrible tension. It’s dried up because you can’t cook it: there’s no fallback solution’.The galerie
Barbier Beltz in Paris in Paris (which also presents his work at the FIAC ) exhibits “Cent desseins
pour un dessin “ , with bernard lamarche-Vadel writing , on this occasion ‘ le derme des présences ‘
. Under the ash of the drawing of the presences ,here we are with the deprogramming drawings on
the fire . He imagines and invents , as he has never ceased to do , as a violent surgeon , a fierce
geologist , whatwe do not know in what we naively think we recognise . That. these deprogramming
drawings are also beautiful - a sort of desolation of pure virtuosity inspires them - is but an
involuntary addition of the great artist, and beauty is a consequence of fittingness’. Hucleux presents
his Dessins de Déprogrammation at the Galerie Slotine in Le Havre;
then the Quai Ecole d’art and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Mulhouse show his work .
A text by Hucleux is pubmished by the cahiers de l’Atelier in Toulouse, accompanied by a number of
Dessins de déprogrammation, with the title “à suivre”....:” Litany of broad daylight, the act of painting
bears within itself the key to its enigma , gives itself up to be seized , make s me not confuse the gold
and the plinth “. The same publisher also produces Gilbert Lascaut ‘s suite ....(see Critical
Reception).
In Liberation ,on 28 April , Henri François Debailleux has an article on ‘Hucleux dans la poétique du
chaos’. ‘ Here ,one discovers some almost- unknown shorfes of his work ,over which he has been
travelling since 1989. Sumptuous in more than one way ,the hundred or so ( ...) .Dessins de
déprogrammation that are presented not only throw new light on the portraits , but , above all , reveal
to us a splendid cartography of the invisible . These works , which have something in common with
automatic writing , are genuine dreaming machines ; they plunge down towards the infinitely small
,unveil its poetic foundations, and set off fishing for the unknown .’ In the May issue of l’ Oeil,
Laurence Pythoud, in her article on ‘ Hucleux . Cent desseins pour un dessin ‘, notes : “ There is
as much difference between a picture and a painting as between life and death .Life is what counts
- life which is dispensed by the true work . A meeting with Hucleux is an intense , an extraordinary
moment , where one has the rare impression of genius - rigorous and insane - at work ; Where the
mechanism itself of creation sets itself in motion , not before our eyes but at the heart of our
intuition of sight . Hucleux talks about “ poetry beyond the angle” .
1996
For its opening , the Maison européenne de la Photographie in Paris exhibits the Portrait de Robert
Franck (after a photograph by Marc Trivier) which was commissioned in 1993 ; and the work is also
included in the full page devoted by Le Monde of the event . The Palais Bénédictine in Fécamp puts
on ‘Hucleux/césar’, and publishes a catalogue which includes numerous illustrations , as well as
texts by bernard Lamarche-Vadel , Leon -Louis Grateloup, ; and Hucleux himself (see Critical
Reception ) .The artist also exhibits the painted portrait of the Jumelles in the ‘Double Vie , Double
Vue’ echibition, which is put on , as part of the Mois de la Photo’ , at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art
Contemporain in Paris .(with the portrait featuring on the cover of the catalogue) , and takes part in
the presentation of ‘Dessins :
Acquisitions 1992.1996’at the Galerie d’Art Graphique in the Musée National d’ Art Moderne ,Centre
Georges Pompidou , with the six Dessins de déprogrammation which entered the Museum’s
collection in 1995 . The drawn Portrait de François Mitterand makes the front page of Paris-Match ,
which carries an illustrated article devoted to the work .Michel Makarius , taking part in the
symposium ‘ La question du Double’, organised by the Ecole des Beaux -Arts in Le Mans on 26 , 27,
and 28 March , describes Hucleux ‘s portraits as ‘Le Comble du Double’
( “‘The last word in the double “), this being in the title of his text in the Actes du Colloque (published
the same year).
1997
Hucleux does the Portrait de Caroline Barbier in pencil . He starts a series of large Dessins de
Deprogrammation on canvas , entitled Squares (200 x 200 cm) , which he has contin ued since
then.
The Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon , whose theme is ‘ l’ Autre ‘ , exhibits the portrait of the
Jumelles, which was closen by Harald Szeemann and reproduced in the catalogue . In an
article in Le Monde on 7 July ( ‘ Un poème dans l’espace et quelques surprises’ ), Bernadette Bost
makes it clear that ‘ the more - than- realism Jumelles could sum up a large number of the
questions one asks oneself about the image of the other . Which one is the other ?.
In the catalogue of La Collection du Musée national d’ art moderne .
Acquisitions 1986-1996 ,there is a text by Catherine Grenier on Hucleux (see Critical
Reception ) , with a discusssion of the Portrait de Piet Mondrian, which was acquired in 1991 .The
Société des Promeneurs artistiques , in its Annales (Editions Yellow Now) , pays tribute to its
inventor Jacques Ohayon , and Jean-Hubert Martin writes : ‘Hucleux’s house is a para dise for the
lover of objects ; it has something of a 1900 s casino , or an art-nouveau hotel . Each piece of
furniture , each trinket , has been carefully chosen , and a white Mercedes cabriolet occupies a place
of honour in the salon .
1998
Hucleux starts work on the pencil Portrait de Virginie De Backer, which he completes the following
year . The Portrait de Robert Frank is used to illustrate an article on the Maison européenne de la
Photographie , in La Photographie Artistique .Répertoire des Collections , published by the Réunion
des Musées Nationaux , Paris .
1999
He does the Portraits of Nelson Mandela and Antoine Marin in pencil. . He finishes a set of twenty
Squares , which are presented for the first time, with most of his painted, drawn, and sculpted work,
in ‘Jean Olivier Hucleux : A 1971 _ 1999 Retrospective” , at the Musée d’art Contemporain in Lyon.
Hucleux currently lives and works in Vaux sur Seine , in Ile de France.