Background
Bissière was born in Villeréal, Lot-et-Garonne, France, on September 22, 1886. He grew up in a family of a notary. Julius Bissier, also a painter, was his younger brother.
7 Rue des Beaux Arts, 33800 Bordeaux, France
Roger Bissière was enrolled in Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he studied from 1905 till 1910.
14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
Bissière was Gabriel Ferrier's student at Ecole Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Paris, France
In 1925-1938 Bissiere occupied the post of a professor of the Académie Ranson.
Bissière was born in Villeréal, Lot-et-Garonne, France, on September 22, 1886. He grew up in a family of a notary. Julius Bissier, also a painter, was his younger brother.
Roger Bissière moved from Villeréal to Bordeaux in 1901. He studied law but quickly decided to leave this field. Bissière moved to Alger where he became an assistant of Georges Rochegrosse, an Orientalist painter. When he came back, Roger Bissière was enrolled in Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he studied from 1905 till 1910. He then went to Paris and became Gabriel Ferrier's student at Ecole Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Bissière permanently lived in Paris from 1910. This year he held his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Berthe Weil in Paris. From 1912, he served as a journalist and hold account-returned exposures for the Parisian weekly magazine “The Opinion”.
After the First World War, he started his friendship with many artists, for example, he befriended André Lhote and Georges Braque, who helped him discover Cubism. In Paris, he began to create his paintings in a Cubist style, influenced by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Pablo Picasso’s Neoclassical artworks.
Roger Bissière kept writing; his articles about Seurat, Ingres and Corot, published in “L’Esprit Nouveau” were noticed. He then became close to the “Purism” of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier. In 1925-1938 Bissiere occupied the post of a professor of the Académie Ranson; he was a teacher of Alfred Manessier, Vieira da Silva, Jean Le Moal and many others.
However, in 1939 he fell ill and came back in Villeréal. There he quickly found a new pictorial support in the landscapes which surrounded him. In the year 1945, although he was almost blind, he executed a series of tapestries. He used the “collage” technique with his wife’s help who sewed shredded and mixed up rags he put together. Bissière also created sculptures out of iron machinery and pieces of wood.
After undergoing treatment for glaucoma, he painted almost exclusively in egg tempera on paper, cardboard, and wood. By the 1950s, Bissière had adopted a much more abstract approach to producing paintings, in which he used stains of rich color to compose each work rather than representational forms. A major solo show was organized at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in 1951, which achieved great acclaim. In the late 1950s, he returned to oil painting, and later designed stained-glass windows for the Metz Cathedral.
Nature morte avec mandoline
Rouge et noir
Untitled
Untitled
Composition
Untitled
La guitare
Vendémiaire
Yellow and black composition
Wood of autumn
Composition 119 (Oiseau rouge sur noir)
Still Life with Glass and Grapes
Composition avec mandoline
Untitled
Untitled
Ocre
October
Les feuilles mortes (Composition 275)
Nu Couché sur Linge Blanc
Femme couchée dans l'herbe
La chanson des rues
Paysage
Untitled
Composition Rose
Floréal
Le verger
Composition grise
Tapestry (Portrait of Madame Bissière)
July
Claire de Lune
Mandoline sur chaise
Composition Rouge, Bleu, Jaune
Abstract
Green and orange
Composition in Blue
Composition 417 (Vert et Jaune)
Woman in a Straw Hat
Composition Rouge (Composition 344)
Untitled
Quotations: "The good painter is the one who buries a colour every day."
Physical Characteristics: Bissière was diagnosed with glaucoma in 1939. By 1950 his peripheral vision was greatly affected and he underwent surgery. This prevented him from becoming blind but did not improve his eyesight.
Bissière married Catherine Lucie Lotte ("Mousse") on January 23, 1919. The couple gave birth to one son, Marc-Antoine, who was born July 15, 1925.