Background
Gaston Chaissac was born on August 13, 1910, in Avallon, Bourgogne, France to a poor family. His father was a shoemaker.
Gaston Chaissac was born on August 13, 1910, in Avallon, Bourgogne, France to a poor family. His father was a shoemaker.
Little attracted by schoolwork, Gaston Chaussac left school very early and did sundry jobs such as kitchen boy, assistant in an ironmonger’s, saddler’s apprentice and ostler, and others.
After having practiced various small trades, from cooking to cobbler, Gaston Chaissac met the German painter Otto Freundlich who encouraged him to deepen his artistic vocation. In 1926, he went to live with his older sister. He started an apprenticeship as a cobbler - his father’s trade - before working among other things as a brush-maker.
Gaston Chaissac embarked upon his first artistic work ten years later, but war and illness - he contracted tuberculosis - slowed down his creative activity. He married in 1942 and settled in the Vendée with his wife. From that point on he never stopped painting, sculpting and writing poems.
His sculptures are characterised by a diversity of support materials, such as pebbles, bits of rock, tree stumps, planks of wood, worn-out brooms, on which he painted with a free and spontaneous hand. He corresponded regularly, notably with Jean Dubuffet and André Breton.
Personnage sur fond nocturne étoilé
Serpents multicolores
Untitled
1949Composition à un personnage
1962Visage aux hachoirs
Personnage
Untitled
1959unknown title
Animal Fantastique
1939Dandy de muraille sur fond bleu
Untitled
1962Personnage à la casquette
Sans titre
1959Y a d'la joie
1960Personnage
1962Composition
1938Untitled
1961unknown title
Vix
1960Untitled 1959
Untitled
1950In 1942, Gaston Chaissac married a young Vendée teacher, Camille Guibert.