JACQUES BOÉRI (1929-2004)

* Je cherche la recherche, je recherche, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, signed and dated lower left. 113 x 145 cm. Jacques BOÉRI was born in ASNIÈRES in 1929 in a house on the rue Émile Zola which adjoined the house where he later lived and which served as his studio until the end of his days. He learned to paint in a theatre decor workshop while taking Art History courses at the Ecole du Louvre. Immediately after this training, he decided to devote his life to painting. His thirst for discovery, his curiosity, his desire to learn from other cultures and his need to rediscover the pictorial technique of the old masters encouraged him to travel the world. He started in Northern Europe to immerse himself in the technique of Rembrandt and Vermeer. In 1953, he met Nadine Véfour on a beach in Antibes. She was sixteen years old, finishing high school. They fell singularly in love and became inseparable. This rather banal encounter transformed the lives of both of them. She gave up her piano studies to devote herself to painting. She followed him to the Louvre to copy the old masters. They married two years later. Jacques communicated to Nadine his thirst to travel the world. They left for the North Cape, Algeria, Afghanistan and Central America. They fell in admiration of the latter destination. In the 1960s and 1970s, he joined the Société des Artistes Français. In 1970, during a group exhibition of French Artists in New York, he was spotted by the Jean Mary Gallery, then located on Third Avenue. Immediately, the gallery exhibited him on its walls. The success was immediate. Jean Mary would become his reference gallery. Every year the art dealer came to Asnières' studio to buy works he was exhibiting in New York. In 1974, in Chicago, the Jean Mary gallery branch and then the Merryl and Chase gallery began to exhibit him. An English gallery was then conquered. Clients flocked to Asnières' studio, as well