Tribute to Robert Lapoujade

Cross the mirror. The wonderland of the Prince of surréalism Robert Lapoujade awaits. Born in 1921, he left school in 1935. Odd jobs followed: butcher's apprentice, kitchen helper, riveter, roofer, farm laborer, human billboard… In 1939 he held his first figurative exhibition, in his hometown of Montauban. In 1941 he was a theater instructor, and during the war he created sets and costumes for a theater workshop in Uriage. Under the fake ID of Lucien Reynaud, he managed a shelter for persecuted Jewish children, and refused to join the STO (Compulsory Labor Service), hiding in the woods, before joining the Jeune France Association. Settled in Paris in 1944, he became friends with the head managers of the Editions du Seuil, from whom he illustrated anthologies and book covers… and also created their logo. After his first Parisian exhibition in 1947, he turned to abstract painting in 1950, with several exhibitions, refining a fusion of artistic and political expression, a commitment to a conciliation of social engagement and abstraction. An art teacher and a film teacher, in the late 50s he diversified his activities and confirmed his defiant militant spirit, fusing his political views and his art: denouncing the Algerian War, creating paintings themed around May ’68 or Hiroshima.

Cinema appeared to be the next logical step for him: he progressively abandoned painting for this new field of formal experimentation and of expressing rebellion. He created short experimental films, mainly at the ORTF’s Research Center. He divided his time between live shooting and animation, a manner of pursuing his graphic work: scratching the film, painting under the camera, or stop motion image modifications. He worked similarly with actors, sometimes animated using stop motion pixilation, as witnessed in his first delirious feature film Le Socrate, (The Socrates), (1968), that introduced an absurd and subversive world, destructuring narration and reality, in which Beckett, Tati, Mocky, and even Švankmajer seem reunited. His feature film Le Sourire Vertical (The Vertical Smile), adapted from his novel L’Inadmissible (The Unadmissible) was presented at the Cannes Film festival in 1973, where it was labeled pornographic, and would be censored, then finally released in theaters in an expurgated version.

In the 80s, he resumed painting and published writings on the subject, but disease gradually crippled him. Some of the classes he instructed in the early 90s, were filmed by Jean-Noël Delamarre (Une Leçon de peinture, (A lesson in painting), 1991). He died at home on May 17, 1993 in Saincy. A retrospective tribute exhibition was held in Montauban in 1996, where a public square now bears his name since 2001.

With the participation of the CNC.