User:RaphKnight/Gabrielle Bellocq

Gabrielle Bellocq has been acknowledged as a great artist by the most respected and authoritative of Europe's Artistic Institutions: Salon des Artistes Francais, Salon d'Automne in Paris and the Royal Academy in London. A purchase by the French State for the National Collection in 1980 places Gabrielle Bellocq amongst France's greatest artists of the 20th century. Her numerous personal exhibitions in Europe, America and Japan have always attracted enthusiastic collectors.

Gabrielle Bellocq was born in 1920 and has lived most of her life in the West of France, near the sea. Painting has been her passion since childhood. Her many years of work and experimentation in pastel have resulted in a technique which is unique and still mystifies her fellow pastellists - virtually a new medium. Through this technique she could render impressionistic effects which even Van Gogh, Monet and Degas were unable to achieve with pastels.

The wide success of Gabrielle Bellocq's work can largely be attributed to her undoubted talent as a colourist: the incredible variety of colours, sometimes daringly bright, often incredibly subtle, full of fine nuances and with a pointillist touch produces an unusual perspective effect. Her landscapes and seascapes clearly remind us of the style of the great impressionists, and yet because she does not paint from life, but from her inspired inner vision, her paintings have a magical dreamlike quality.

Through her delightful figures from ancient times, she invites the viewer to join in her communion with nature. We go with them towards the light as through their eyes ewe are taken to places of marvelous beauty, tranquility and inner peace.

Her works were best sellers at the Century Galleries, Henley-on-Thames, for many years, but since she passed away in 1999 most of the paintings have remained in the hands of private collectors.

One of Gabrielle Bellocq’s pastels is in the French National Art Collection, and she received many internationally renowned awards in Paris. She also exhibited in several summer exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Referece: www.gabriellebellocq.com