Roger Forissier: A great name for painting and French lithography of the twentieth century

Biography of Roger Forissier (1924–2003)

Born in Lyon in 1924, Roger Forissier is a prominent figure in the post-war French figurative art. From an early age, he showed an artistic sensitivity that naturally led him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, then to the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. There, he formed with the great names of artistic education and crossed the road of emerging figures like Bernard Buffet, André Minaux or Jean Jansem. But very quickly, Forissier drew his own path, refusing dogmas and taboo vanguards, to anchor in an art of nuance, light and silence.

His work, while in restraint and depth, moves away from the dominant cannons of the era to propose a painting of the intimate, contemplative, sensitive. As early as the 1950s, he exhibited in the major parisian fairs — Salon d'Automne, Comparisons, Painters Witnesses of their Time — where his singularity was noticed. His career took on a national and international dimension: he exhibited in Switzerland, Germany, Japan and the United States, while continuing a transmission activity as a professor of Applied Arts in Paris.

Roger Forissier died in 2003 at the age of 79, leaving behind a large and demanding work, present in many private and public collections.

The artistic universe of Roger Forissier

Roger Forissier's work is distinguished by its atmosphere of contemplation, its palette of half tints and the elegant sobriety of its pictorial construction. He paints silent landscapes, felt interiors, female figures suspended in the waiting. The emotion is never screamed, but suggested, watermarked, in a subtle game of shadows and lights. His art evokes the intimate, the ephemeral, the unspeakable.

In this, he shares a certain aesthetic proximity with Henri Le Sidaner, Albert Marquet, or even Camille Hilaire, while maintaining a clean identity, rooted in the discreet modernity of the 1960s and 1980s. Forissier is a painter of silence, suspended gesture, inner gaze.

Its compositions are often marked by soft geometry, flat flats, sober and transparent backgrounds. It is sometimes perceived that the remote influence of Matisse, for the taste of structure and line, or Georges Rouault, for spiritual depth and emotional density.

In parallel with his painting, Forissier developed an important work in the field of lithography, which he raises to the rank of art in its own right. He collaborates with major workshops and publishers, including Mourlot and Les Heures Claires, producing remarkable prints, always printed on vellum paper or high-quality art paper. His lithographs take up the themes dear to his painting: interiors, women, windows, southern or northern landscapes, all in a style that combines graphic poetry and technical mastery.

Buying a Roger Forissier work: a choice of refinement

To acquire a work by Roger Forissier is to choose a sincere, demanding, delicate art. Its original lithographs, are sought for the quality of their drawing, and the silent force they release. On vellum paper, they offer both narrative and meditative scenes, ideal for sober, elegant, soothing interiors.

Unlike other more mediated artists, such as Claude Weisbuch or Paul Ambille, Forissier never sacrificed the depth to the effect. His works today seduce an audience of modern art lovers who seek timelessness more than the creepy signature. It is precisely this restraint, this fidelity to an interior aesthetic, which makes Roger Forissier an artist today rediscovered with attention.

Galerie125 regularly offers original works by Forissier, including original lithographs, always rigorously selected for their state and artistic interest. These works, both accessible and powerful, offer real opportunities to enrich a modern art collection or to begin a coherent clash around the figurative painting of the twentieth century.