Whitford Fine Art is proud to present a third exhibition of French artists Jean Lurçat (1892- 1966) and Georges Bernède (b. 1926). Bringing together two artists from a different generation, tradition, and background, the exhibition shows their common ground of the universal themes of freedom, movement and poetry.

An important and successful painter of the School of Paris, Jean Lurçat's artistic eye simultaneously wandered towards a multitude of other media - most notably, ceramics with which the artist worked away abundantly at the workshops of Sant-Vicens in the 1950's.

Imaginary and mythological sea and wood creatures and foliage are winding their ways in thickly applied saturated colours overlaid with brilliant glaze. These designs demonstrate Lurçat's fondness of the symbolic and poetry which formed the core of his artistic expression. Thus a plate, a bowl, a jug or a tile, becomes an object of beauty and exquisiteness. Lurçat's poetry is ultimately derived from the excellence of the Art Nouveau style.

Georges Bernède's quest for poetry and beauty was achieved through his own human struggle. The son of a local carpenter in the bastide of Monségur, near Bordeaux, Bernède was mocked for wanting to become a painter.

Bernède painted in solitude and his work was rarely shown. In his continuous search to express the poetry of Life, Bernède tried to establish an analogy to musical rhythm in his painting and thus naturally grew to gestural painting, partnered with a monochrome palette. Whilst being deceptively subtle, Bernède's paintings show dramatic movement and impact through the energetic application of the paint.