French, 20th century, male.
Born 26 June 1909, in Dijon; died 6 December 1996, in Paris.
Painter, collage artist, engraver, draughtsman. Wall decorations, designs for mosaics, stained glass windows, tapestries, stage costumes and sets.
A pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyons in 1930, Bertholle studied in Paris from 1932-1934, and subsequently attended classes run by the painter Roger Bissière at the Académie Ranson, where he met his friends and associates Manessier, Etienne-Martin, Le Moal and Véra Pagava. He was artistic director of the Gien porcelain factory from 1943-1957, and taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1965-1980. He was a member of the Institut de France, a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Initially an admirer of Puvis de Chavannes, whose work he had encountered at the city museum in Lyons, Bertholle later discovered Manet (at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1932), and through the latter, Van Gogh and Renoir. Following his early, highly-coloured Expressionist period, Bertholle was greatly influenced by the Flemish fantasies of Breughel and Heironymus Bosch, and ultimately by the Surrealists - as may be seen in his painting of the ...
