Pierre Clayette in his studio
Pierre Clayette (24 March 1930–18 December 2005) was a French painter, etcher and lithographer, illustrator and scenographer. Active for five decades, much of his work was architectural in style.
Pierre Clayette (24 March 1930–18 December 2005) was a French painter, etcher and lithographer, illustrator and scenographer. Active for five decades, much of his work was architectural in style.
Born in Paris in 1930, after high school Clayette attended the Académie Julian where he studied under Jules Cavaillès. On leaving the Académie he was recruited by Cassandre to work in his studio. Clayette's first known professional work was in the mid 1950s. From 1960 he explored a different artistic theme each year, exhibiting virtually continuously each year successively until the early 1990s at the Galerie Charpentier, the Galerie Roger Dulac, the Galerie Emmanuel David and the Galerie Proscenium. At the same time, he collaborated with the magazine Planète as a draftsman, and illustrated the covers or the text of books including the works of Shakespeare (including the series New Penguin Shakespeare), Goethe, Rimbaud, Kafka, etc. In the early 1960s, dramatist Jean Anouilh introduced Clayette to the stage actor and director Jean Le Poulain as "A painter of the waking dream".[1][2]
For Planète he illustrated the poems of Victor Hugo;[3] he also illustrated the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges in the Fantasy Realism style. However, like many artists who at one point in their career were associated with the movement such as Pierre-Yves Trémois, Clayette's pictorial production did not stop at the themes of Fantasy Realism.[4] Although the unusual is a constant of his work, it draws its references in many artistic currents including Romanticism, Baroque, Symbolism, etc.[2]
Clayette died in Colombes in France in 2005 aged 75.
By his own admission,[6] Pierre Clayette was interested in scenography and theater design before even considering painting. The influence of Cassandre is evident in an artist who was one of the last representatives of the period between the 1920s and the late 1970s during which theater and opera directors often appeal to leading artists in the world of painting.[7] As such, Clayette is part of a lineage that included, among others, André Derain, Balthus, Christian Berard, George Wakhevich, Cassandre and André Masson. Clayette entered the world of scenography in 1955 for a ballet by Daniel Wayenberg with Pierre Lacotte who entrusted him with his first set of sets. Clayette became famous among the great names of lyric and dramatic scenes, such as Maurice Béjart, Pierre Lacotte, Gabriel Dussurget, Maurice Escande and Jean Le Poulain, maintaining a long involvement with the latter until Poulain's death in 1988. Clayette's talent as a stage designer gave him the opportunity to express himself on the most prestigious stages, such as the Comédie-Française, the Palais Garnier and the International Festival of Lyric Art in Aix-en-Provence.[2]
The Treasure of the Dutch - sets by André François and Pierre Clayette (1969)
