For almost two months, until next October, some works of the Grand Painter have been exhibited at the Bagnères-de-Bigorre casino, free of charge.
Installed for many years in Campan, Bruno Schmeltz, born in Toulouse of a Tarbais father, has always worn the Pyrenees in the heart. His artistic journey, guided from childhood by an innate passion for drawing, leads him to a work of rare intensity.
From his beginnings as a copyist at the Louvre at the age of 17, until recognition by Pierre Cardin, the painter was able to impose a unique style, marked by extreme precision and palpable emotion.
The richness of a life: that of his work
A demanding self -taught, Bruno Schmeltz continued a personal quest for perfection, far from conventions. Disstabrication of classical education, he trained alone in the techniques which will lead him to hyperrealism. In each of his paintings, the smallest detail takes on meaning: a skin fold, a look, a suspended gesture … Nothing is artificial, everything is accuracy, everything is truth. His art does not seek to seduce or shock, but to say the essential, in a pictorial language of great clarity.
His paintings are silent stories, imbued with poetry, work, dreams and life. They touch us by their quiet force, their human density, their sensitive beauty. They challenge noise without noise, simply by the power of the true.
Through painted matter, we perceive a presence, a memory, a fidelity to what makes the soul of beings and places. It is this loyalty that makes Bruno Schmeltz an artist apart, free, deeply human. Artist with multiple talents, he also distinguished himself in the art of stained glass, notably realizing those of the Cathedral of Dakar and closer to us, those of the church of Capvern-les-Bains. Another facet of a discreet but passionate man, always faithful to his Pyrenean roots, in his mountain, in light. This link to the elements, to nature, to the verticality of the summits, irrigates all its work, even in its most intimate subjects.
Bagnères-de-Bigorre celebrates talent
The city of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, faithful to its commitment to culture and artistic creation, wanted to discover the monumental work of Bruno Schmeltz. Thanks to the active support of the municipality and the mobilization of its technical services, some of its most imposing paintings could be installed in the Casino salons, a place up to their visual power and their symbolic dimension. Their large formats, their realistic intensity and their disturbing presence offer real experience to the visitor. It is not only a question of admiring, but of meeting a work that looks at us as much as we look at it, which touches us by its truth. This exhibition is more than a presentation: it is a dialogue between an artist and a territory, between a deep sensitivity and a curious audience. She honors a painter of the essential, of which each work is a vibrant, silent and sincere tribute to life.
