Guidette Carbonell

Guidette Carbonell (1910-2008) was born in Meudon, France. Guidette was Marguerite Carbonell's nickname, and history will remember it. She was born to a Catalan father and an Armenian mother who had moved to Paris to study painting. These two cultural heritages have fuelled her creative, original and singular imagination throughout her career. Catalan and Armenian traditions have particularly influenced her dreamlike work, which echoes the aesthetics of fairy tales and mythology, creating a fantastic universe.

Guidette began drawing at the age of five and spent every summer with her grandparents in Roussillon, where she was immersed in the world of the craftsmen at a local brickworks from an early age. At the age of 15, she moved to Paris and took several art courses to perfect her technique: André Lhote's course at the Grande-Chaumière, Othon Friesz's at the Académie Suédoise and Roger Bissière's at the Académie Ranson. She then trained in ceramics, particularly modelling, at a school of applied arts on the rue de Fleurus. She soon began creating her own ceramic pieces, influenced by other artists. She shared her first studio in Vitry with the Catalan ceramist Josep Llorens i Artigas, known for his work with Raoul Dufy and Joan Miró. Her first works were exhibited in 1928 at the Salon d'Automne alongside such great names as Paul Beyer, Émile Decoeur, Auguste Delaherche and Jean Mayodon. From this time onwards, she made a name for herself with her colourful, mischievous pieces, skilfully sketched in pencil before being executed by hand.

Her artistic career has evolved from figurative to abstract art, incorporating unusual elements such as glass and metal into her ceramic and cement works. With a modern, unfinished touch, she delivers a vision of a disturbed inner world, reminiscent of childhood. Her work is imbued with oriental culture and inspired by romantic and primitive forms. Guidette creates a fascinating bestiary, where the human and the animal merge in a surprising and poetic way.

His creations bear witness to the dissolution of the boundaries between the different artistic practices that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and developed in the twentieth. His work, deeply influenced by painting and sculpture, reflects this evolution. In the 1950s, Guidette began creating wall panels in ceramic and stone, as well as bas-reliefs. She continued her research into ceramics until the late 1960s, when she turned to tapestry. Her tapestries are made up of pieces of fabric glued and sewn together.

From the late 1930s to the 1990s, his work explored mythological, musical, poetic and scientific worlds, always driven by a fascination for nature. Today, her work seems surprisingly contemporary. During her lifetime, she has had several institutional exhibitions, notably those organised by the Association Française pour l'Action Artistique (AFAA), which have brought her work to international attention. More recently, in 2007, a major retrospective was organised by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris, La Piscine in Roubaix and the Musée de la Céramique in Rouen.