For this new exhibition, the Gallery baudoin lebon is making us discover or rediscover the work of the photographer Gerard Rondeau.
A great portraitist, he worked for over twenty years with the newspaper Le Monde, producing a big collection of painter portraits and contemporary writers. Rondeau always knows how to choose an original angle and permits us to escape the stereotypes of photo reporting clichés.
BIOGRAPHY
Gerard Rondeau was born in Châlons-sur-Marne on April 10th 1953 in a family of teachers.He studied in Reims and then directed l’Alliance Française of Kandy (Sri Lanka) from 1974 to 1976. The discovery of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book about the USSR, in the library of the Alliance, is a revelation for him. As soon as he is back in Champagne, he launches his career as a selftaught photograph.
For over more than twenty years, he maintained a close partnership with the newspaper Le Monde, producing a large portrait collection of painters and contemporary writers, with lasting friendships emerging from those interactions. He photographed the painter Paul Rebeyrolle in action and traveled the battlefields of the First World War with the novelist Yves Gibeau.
He toured some of the most famous music venues in the world with the Ysaÿe Quartet. He also proceeded with the realization of an inventory of the streets that marked his life with the help of the writer Bernard Franck, as well as went up the Marne with Jean Paul Kauffman.
Gerard Rondeau, being a tireless journeyer, constantly travels the world but still remains strongly attached to his native Champagne, where he chose to live, continuously re-examining its landscapes and its people. He re-discovered the hidden treasures of the Reims Cathedral.
He explored museums behind the scenes for over twenty years; he covered the life of Sarajevo under siege, drew up a portrait of contemporary Morocco in a dialogue above time with Delacroix’s paintings and drawings, as well as uncovered the hidden face of the Tour de France. He accompanied Médecins du Monde’s missions throughout the world for over fifteen years.
Gerard Rondeau presented numerous solo shows in institutions such as the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, The National Gallery in Jakarta, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Luz Festival in Buenos-Aires, the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, and the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. He invented specific photo series in Istanbul, New York, Sarajevo and Rome.
Gerard Rondeau travels in a black and white world, following endless roads, searching for the trace of the forgotten, playing with words, shadows and silences, collating histories and restoring worlds in pain.
Gerard Rondeau received in 2007 the prize ‘Prix de l’Artiste de l’Année’ in the category ‘Arts Plastiques’ during the Globes de Cristal in Paris.
Gerard Rondeau passed away on September 13th 2016.
