LANERT charles

1902 . aiguebelle grignan . france

1995 . marseille . france

Joseph Paul Gustave Vanneyre grew up close to the abbey of Aiguebelle. His father was an accountant in a chocolate factory run by the monks. Married in 1929 in Vésinet (Yvelines), he joined the army where he worked almost twenty years as a radiologist. In 1950, when he retired, he began a career in art. Joining the National Union of graphic artists, he started to use the pseudonym Charles Lanert and painted very small formats in oil on pieces of wood and canvas until the 1960s; after this date he prefered to work in ink on paper. He then tried, for a long time, paper cutting  and collage. Penniless, he collected everything he could find —  paper, cardboard, magazine covers — to recycle them for his creation. Over thirty-five years he would produce a body of several thousand drawings, in which the question of spirituality is very present. We can perceive in them  the strong influence that his radiologist work had on him. By 1985, having become blind, Charles Lanert ceased all his artistic activity and moved to Marseille.