My sculptures are all fragments of the landscapes in my youth, all memories of those umbrella pines are the landscape of Nice, and more generally the Mediterranean landscapes.
Claude Gilli is a leading artist from the Nice school who has greatly contributed to the affirmation of French pop art. Born in Nice in 1938, he entered the Decorative Art school in Nice in 1955. Between 1957 and 1959, during his first exhibitions at the Galerie de Longchamp, he befriended with Albert Chubac, Martial Raysse, then Ben at the inauguration of the latter’s “Laboratory 32”.
In 1962, on New Year’s Eve, he burned almost all of his early works. Then he met Arman, César, Farhi and Venet before meeting Robert Malaval with whom he carried out several works around “L’aliment blanc”. He presents numerous exhibitions, notably in Venice then in Paris at Yvon Lambert Gallery after having obtained the Lefranc Prize in 1966. The following year he takes part in the exhibition “12 Super-Réalistes” in Venice at Del Leone where he discovers the works of American “pop”, Lichtenstein, Warhol and Wesselmann. Then in 1968 he worked with plexiglass before starting a series of “snail” paintings.
En 2005, Constance Ryder réalise un documentaire long-métrage sur son travail diffusé sur TV5 Monde.
Entre 2005 et 2015, Gilli participe à de nombreuses expositions en Asie, aux États-Unis et en Europe, réalise une sculpture monumentale en acier de 12 mètres pour la Fondation Alliance, sur le site d’Al-Maaden à Marrakech, et est décoré par le ministre de la Culture au grade de Commandeur des Arts et Lettres.
Le 28 juin 2015 Claude Gilli décède à Nice, à l’âge de 76 ans. Une exposition posthume lui est consacrée au MAMAC en 2017.
This artist offers you
We wrote about
