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Henri Salingardes
French nationality
Born in Villefranche-de-Rouergue in 1872
Dies in Cordes in 1947
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| Salingardes works as a barber from the age of adolescence.
In 1903, he moves to Cordes in the Tarn. At the age of fifty-three, he buys
an old hotel, visits antique shops and flea markets. He repairs old furniture
and restores objects. His hotel fills up quickly and looks like a museum
or rather like the cave of Ali Baba. |
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| When he reaches the age of sixty-four, Henri Salingardes
spends most of his time in his "outdoor" workshop, pouring concrete and
kneading clay. He also starts making medallions and assemblages of animals
or imaginary figures glued onto backgrounds, which are sometimes covered
with imprints of leaves. Many of his figures are male profiles with strongly
marked noses, mouths and chins. The eyes are usually holes dug into the
cement. |
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| Henri loses a leg in a railroad accident in November
of 1943 and stops all of his activities. He dies in the spring of 1947. |
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| Henri Salingardes' work is filled with passion for
assemblage and bricolage. It is the story of a man who goes from restoring
furniture to creating an imaginary world connected intimately with his materials,
very simple materials as the cement he uses. Henri Salingardes has chosen
to mold rather than sculpt in the same way the mason does framework. A creation
closer to the job of a workman than to the "work of an artist". |
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| SEE ALSO: Publications de la Compagnie de
l'Art Brut, fascicule 3, text of Jean-Paul Casard, Paris, 1965. |
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