Henri Comby exhibition at Henri Chartier Paris.

Collage et aquarelle sur papier, 64,5x50cm, 1966. © photo Blaise Adilon.

Born in Le Puy-en-Velay on 3 August 1928, Henri Comby acquired his passion for drawing from his neighbour, a master glassblower, at the age of fourteen. He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, then in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Ranson, in the studios of Fernand Léger and Jean Deyrolle.  What he does, in fact, is to cut open an era in the same way that doctors in days of old used to open up bodies in search of a pathology, a physiological function or an unusual pattern. We might flashback here to Henri Comby’s childhood and adolescence, with animal carcasses hanging in the family delicatessen, or visits to a pig slaughterhouse. He makes no secret of his admiration for works like Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox or Soutine’s Carcass of Beef. How is a body (animal or human) made, how is Romanesque or Baroque religious architecture made, how is a factory, a wind tunnel, or a machine tool made? What organs are they composed of, what flows and motions go through them, what analogies bring them together? These are the questions that the artist’s metal sculptures, drawings and collages are basically asking. He is not praising them or passing judgement, but he is still astonished by both human and natural engineering and their potential for destructive brutality. At the same time, he finds artistic forms through which to devise new functions, new harmonies, new bio-industrial systems. But always with a touch of humour to lighten things up Read More  — Extract of "Henri Comby, moteur!", Jean Emmanuel Denave, cultural journalist & art critic, October 2020.  Translation, Jeremy Harrison.

Œuvres disponibles / Available Artworks

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