Roger Desserprit was born on March 9, 1923 in Buxy, Saone et Loire. From an early age he has a keen interest in painting and drawing. He began painting studies in 1938 and joined the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1941, just 18 years old. But the classical teaching at the extreme of the Institution does not suit him. When he tells us about his years of learning, he evokes sections of paintings by Michel Angelo representing the modernity of the time, while the majority of the tasks to be performed were the study of antiquities. It seems that the opening to the artistic movements of the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth was done for Desserprit booksque way on the one hand (Van Gogh, Gauguin) and on the other hand through the attendance of galleries Of the Latin Quarter where the works of Derain, Vlaminck, and many others were shown. From 1943, he must remain in sanatorium where he paints his hands in a way quite close to that of cubism. Three years of illness forced him to meet other artists in order to find 'authenticity at an age when confrontations and criticism are obligatory and necessary'.
THE MADI GROUP Through André Frénaud, Roger Desserprit met Bazaine, Ubac and Vieira da Silva, whose workshops he regularly attended. At Vieira da Silva he met Uruguayan Carmelo Arden Quin, initiator of MADI Group founded in 1946 in Brazil. Roger Desserprit will later work with Juan Mêle, Gregorio Vardanega and José Bresciani, and will make multiple meetings: Michel Seuphor, Marcelle Cahn, Herbin, Arp, Del Marle. In 1949, he participated in the brand new Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (founded in 1946). A MADI exhibition is organized in April 1950 at the Galerie Colette Allendy, bringing together works by Arden Quin, Bresciani, Desserprit, Eielson and Vardanega. The whole is also transferred to the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles of this same Year. MADI's theories are based on an abstract geometrical aesthetic derived from Mondrian's neoplasticism, and Van Doesburg's reflections on concrete art. Roger Desserprit is definitely part of the vanguard of his time.
SPACE GROUP AND EXHIBITION AT COLETTE ALLENDY With the publication in 1951 of a manifesto, undated, and the support of the magazine Art d'Aujourd'hui founded in 1949 by one of the members of the group, André Bloc, the 23 plastic signatories including Del Marle, the President, Béothy, Desserprit, Gorin, Jacobsen, Lardera, Schoffer, Vasarely ... as well as architects claim the integration or 'synthesis of the arts'. With contemporary techniques, in a non-figurative expression that intervenes directly on the community, the plastic creation must be functional, register in a 'real Space'. 'An Art that has become spatial through the sensitive and modulated penetration of the Light into the work, an Art whose conception and execution are based on the simultaneity of the aspects in the three dimensions not suggested, but tangible'.
It is worth mentioning the personal exhibition of Roger Desserprit in 1951 at Colette Allendy entitled 'Structures and Bright Reliefs'. Michel Seuphor commented favorably on the exhibition in Art d'Aujourd'hui (Series 2, No. 7, July 1951) as well as Georges Boudaille in the columns of the weekly Art of May 18, 1951.
THE NEW REALITIES FAIR Since 1949, Roger Desserprit exhibited at the Salon of Reality News, event taking place at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and is firmly in the path of an art 'abstract / concrete / constructivist / non-figurative' as the Specifies the catalog. Proponents of a geometric art are in the majority. The Salon Committee brings together, in addition to the founding President, Fredo Sidès, the member artists: Arp, Besançon, Sonia Delaunay, Dewasne, Gleizes, Gorin, Pevsner. The member Roger Desserprit, treasurer of the Salon, gets for his art the support of Fernand Leger, Pevsner, Closon, Herbin, Sonia Delaunay and Kupka. Works by Roger Desserprit can be found in various private collections, notably in France and Italy, at the Grenoble Museum, at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, at the Musée des Ursulines in Mâcon. A sculpture belongs to the city of Mâcon. Roger Desserprit made a work for the Crypt of the Deportees on Ile Saint-Louis in Paris.
WORKS OF THE 1970S At this moment perhaps lies the vital center for the understanding of the work of Desserprit. The lines become more flexible, as freed from the previous formalism, and the light makes its work of connection with the space, abolishing the notions of measurement and technicality. The affiliation of Roger Desserprit with artistic groups and movements seems today to him a necessary but not decisive step.
The notions of synthesis, complementarity and harmony are obvious. Roger Desserprit gives the metaphysical questions that anguish him the symbolic response of the artist, affirming his vocation to be resolutely painter.
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION) 1950: Colette Allendy Gallery, MADI exhibition 1951: Colette Allendy Gallery, 'Structures and luminous reliefs' 1957: Pagani Gallery, Milan (Italy) 1978: Fontaine Castle, University of Picardy 1989: Franka Berndt Gallery, Paris 1998: Park Palace Gallery, Monaco 1957: Carved decoration in the Church of St. Jacques d'Amiens
FAIRS / BIENNIALS / PRICES 1949/61: Salon of Realities News 1957: 1st prize at the Biennale de Bordeaux 1958: Honorary Award at the Milan Triennale (Italy) 1961/63: Salon of the young sculpture
MUSEUMS Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris Ursuline Museum, Macon Grenoble Museum

Selected works

Roger Desserprit, Etude en couleurs 1966


1923-1985
France
Lyrical abstraction
Ink or pencil drawing
Ink and wash on paper 31.5 x 48 cm
Signed and dated lower left
Roger Desserprit, Etude pour une sculpture 1958


1923-1985
France
Lyrical abstraction
Ink or pencil drawing
Grease pencil on paper
31 x 17.5 cm
Signed and dated lower right
Roger Desserprit, Sculpture spatiale 1960


1923-1985
France
Lyrical Abstraction
Sculpture
Hammered Copper
50 x 100 x 19 cm
Signed and dated at the base