Jean-Yves Bourgain
Painter, fresco artist, engraver, mural art.
Affiliated with La Maison des Artistes, workshops in Paris and in the Allier, active
since 1977.
Admitted to the French Academy in Rome (Villa Medici) in painting
Knight of Arts and Letters.
Gold Award from the Allier Department (France).
Training
In Paris : Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts : painting and mural art,
Institut d’Art et d’Archéologie : art history,
In Rome: Istituto Centrale per il Restauro: research on ancient wall paintings,
technologies, scientific procedures of analysis and conservation.
Italian cultural missions in conservation and archaeology.
Main venues for personal exhibitions
French Cultural Institutes of Cologne, Milan, Turin, Catania
Museum of Fine Arts of Angers
Espace Unifor, Paris
In galleries in Paris, Germany, Italy, United States, Middle East.
Modern and Contemporary Art Fund, city of Montluçon, Auvergne region, Seven Monumental
Doors, in collaboration with Véronique Sabatier, sculptor, Tristan Leroux, poet and Galerie
Pierre scenography, in partnership with ERDF and La Semaine de l’Allier.
Over Time, Wood and Water – Monumental Doors, Gold Pyramid, Saint Amand-Montrond,
Région Centre, summer-autumn 2013.
Antiques in the Présent, Orangery of the castle of Cormatin, Burgundy Region, France 2017.
From Renaissance to Renewal, Villandry Castle, Loire Valley Region, France, summer-
autumn 2018.
A single grain of rice, Métanoïa Gallery, Paris, 2019
Paintings, Sonia Monti Gallery, Paris, 2020
To the Sources of Time, Orangery of the castle of Cormatin, Burgundy region, France,
summer-autumn 2022
Main collective exhibitions
FIAC 77, Novembre à Vitry, Grands et Jeunes d’aujourd’hui, L’estampe aujourd’hui
(Bibliothèque Nationale), Mac 2000.
Hivernales de Paris Est Montreuil (December 2012), in partnership with La Maison
des Artistes.
Main sites of monumental art, public and private commissions, suites of
paintings :
House of Tourism of Angers
Departmental Direction of the Territories, Angers
Shilla Hotel, Seoul, South Korea
Happ En, wedding hall, Meguro district, Tokyo
Royal Park Hotel, Palazzo, Tokyo
Fujiya Building, 6th Ward, Ginza, Tokyo / Brunei
S.A.E.S. Toulouse
La Roche Posay Thermal Spa
Beaumont-Oise Hospital
Zeneca Pharma, Cergy Pontoise
Thompson Optronic, Guyancourt
Beirut, Ryad, Kartoum
in Paris: SPS Réassurances, Société Foncière Lyonnaise, Ernst et Young, Vectrane,
Banque Groupama Finama.
Heritage Scientific Publications :
J.-Y.Bourgain, “La restauration comme moyen de connaissance : le plafond peint
de l’ancien collège des Jésuites de Moulins. Etude technologique et identification de son auteur”, pp. 527-542. Actes du colloque : Les Jésuites parmi les Hommes au XVIe et XVIIe, Université de Clermont-Ferrand, 1986, p. 527-542, planches IX-XX.
J.-Y.Bourgain, « Giovanni Gherardini, 1638-1723, peintre italien de Bologne (vie
et œuvres monumentales) », Bulletin de la Société Nivernaise des Sciences, Lettres
et Arts, 39, 1990, pp.11-25, illustr. en collaboration avec le Laboratoire de recherches des Monuments Historiques :
Jean-Yves Bourgain, Bernard Callède, “Les fresques du Primatice dans la salle de
bal du Château de Fontainebleau : l’héritage.
Etude physico-chimique et microbiologique, essai de dérestauration”, pp. 201-235, dans Les anciennes
restauration en peinture murale, Journées d’études de la Section Française de
l’Institut International pour la Conservation, Dijon, 25-27 mars 1993, illustr.
J.-Y.Bourgain,
“Eglise St-Eloi de Vitray : Genèse d’une découverte”, pp. 81-88,
Bull. De la société des Amis de la forêt de Tronçais, n° 48, Juillet 2003, illustr.
J.-Y.Bourgain,
“La voûte peinte de l’ancienne bibliothèque de la Maison Professe
des Jésuites de Paris : analyses, préconsolidation, restauration”, in Le Lycée
Charlemagne au Marais, 1804-2004, publié à l’occasion du bicentenaire du Lycée
Charlemagne, Paris, 2004, pp.150-168, illustrations couleur 1- 47, relevés
graphiques I-III.
J.-Y.Bourgain, “Les peintures murales de l’oratoire du Château d’Ainay le Vieil :
interprétation critique où le difficile exercice d’une restauration rejoint l’histoire
d’une famille”, Bull. de la Société des Amis de la Forêt de Tronçais, n°51, juillet
2006, pp. 56- 65, illustr.
J.-Y.Bourgain,
Lionel Bergatto, “Un cas particulier de restauration au château de
Fléchères (Ain) : la Chambre dite de la Parade. Un décor commémoratif de
l’entrée d’Henri IV à Lyon en 1595 peint à fresque en 1632 pour Mathieu de
Sève par Pietro Ricchi”, Monumental, sem. 2 – 2008.
Extracts from the press
“… to create a spiritual climate where, as in a mirror, painting and poetry reflect
each other” the important thing is that the plastic work is worthy of the poem. It is.
It transports us in the burning or calm deserts of the contemplation that no obstacle
hinders… The meditation of Jean-Yves Bourgain needs big spaces to bloom at
ease. And the matt, muffled tints, (survival of his past of frescoist), of azure and
colchic, of pink and sand, are wonderfully suited to a contemplative nature,
immersed in the poem … J.-M.Dunoyer, Le Monde
The painting of Jean-Yves Bourgain is, in the contemporary painting, a world
apart. It does not belong to any school, it is a solitary painting… It is contemplative:
his work is both a diary and a relation of what belongs to no one, the stars, the
seasons, nature. It is abstract but teeming with details because one reads the sky,
the bestiary, the “gestures” of men… He practises painting as a broad and precise
vision of a very strong interior requirement… Viviane Huchard, extract from the
catalog of the exhibition of the museum of Angers.
There is no drama, even less tragedy in the painting of Jean-Yves Bourgain. It is
the joy of existing in earthy pinks, chopped with purple crystals, which radiate
towards the slightly green blue of infinity. It is the blue mixed with browns, ochres,
which is purified, synthesized, concentrated in parma light with auracular bangs of
a white prism… J. Mélèze, Pariscope.
…with the extreme discretion that inspires an abstraction as sensitive as rigorous.
La Bible de l’Art Abstrait, p. 148, Le Livre d’Art, tome 1, édit. 2008.
Tenderness and strength of colors, presence and depth of being. The touch of the
eye becomes a caress and an exploration of all possibilities. A serene invitation to
travel through the secret domains of the human being, this painting of great
serenity, full of energy, affirms that, when it merges with the life of forms, the
inner life is a great adventure… Pascale Bourgain.
Collaborative video with Aymeric Bourgain : Sept Portes Monumentales, 2011 / Au fil du temps, du bois, de l’eau, 2013.