Espace Paul Rebeyrolle

Eymoutiers, Overlooking the village

Eymoutiers, is a beautiful little town in the Haute-Vienne county of the Limousin region of France, with the Vienne River meandering through it. The mayor and townspeople established a museum devoted to the painting of Paul Rebeyrolle, (1926-2005), with space for invited guests. Walking out of town towards Nedde, Espace Paul Rebbeyrolle is suddenly there, nestled in the trees. The museum is full of light, is graceful, and modern in design. Architect Olivier Chaslin designed it and worked with the artist. The use of natural light, pathways with multiple variations, and placement of art were all carefully planned to showcase Paul’s work.

Flowers along the river’s edge

Painting Human Truths

Paul Rebeyrolle’s art is full of wrath, torture, misery, and agony. It is also full of joyous, loving relationships and friends. Paul made an artistic commitment to telling the ugly truths of human existence. Mrs.Tellikdjians Bag is a series devoted to the homeless problem, using a handbag to demonstrate a displaced person fleeing poverty and persecution, trying to survive. The paintings tell a story of an attack, a thief, and a dirty handbag dumped in a gutter. His overwhelming Great Landscapes  are 530 x 350 cm, (17.4 x 11.5 feet) are imposing, powerful, and emotional.

The Espace Paul Rebeyrolle is the only showcase for 60 years’ worth of art. Over his career he painted many series, some of which include: The Instruments of a Painter, Guerrillas, Co-existences, Prisoners, Still-Lives and Power, Failed Prison Breaks, Any Stick Will Do, and Bacchus. According to the catalog of his work, he was once asked: “Paul, how do you know when you are through with a series?” He answered: “When I stop dreaming about it”.

Lost Liberty

Influences

Paul Rebbeyrolle was influenced by Georges Guingouin, who was a local school teacher and resistance guerrilla active in liberating the Limousin region during World War II. Paul also had a friendship with Jean Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault. He was “engaged, enraged and travels through his times like Dante through hell”, according to Francis Marmande, author of the catalog, Paul Rebeyrolle, Collection Permanente. Paul has been described as “a wild boar, an oddball, a force of nature, the man of the forest. He was also elegant, gallant, courteous. He had a unique, spontaneous, witty, thoughtful mode of speaking. He was a refined yokel and a civilized person gone feral. A human animal. ”What did Paul believe in? “In Nothing. In love. I don’t any longer believe in revolution as an insurrection led from the woods. The system now is too self-devouring. Rather, I believe in searching for solutions in the joy that strikes me every morning, as soon as I get up, when I hurry in to the studio, even when nothing is going right.” (Paul Rebeyrolle, Collection Permanente)

A Sense of Truth

Espace Paul Rebbeyrolle is a museum that gives one a sense of truth. Truth as experienced by a man who loved people, love itself, wild forest mushrooms, rivers, and dogs, and mornings. These truths came through a man who transformed his love for material things, the human body, and wine, into passionate joyous painting.  Paul Rebeyrolle painted what he saw, struggling for accuracy and looking for painterly solutions to demonstrate possible global catastrophe, the battle against nature, and the oppression of the underprivileged.

If you ever have an opportunity to travel to the Limousin region of France, make time to stop in to this beautiful  town and museum. Submitted by Pamela Dorris DeJong