Gaston Goor

Gaston Goor (1902-1977) was a highly accomplished and controversial painter of boys. His principal patron for more than 30 years has been Roger Peyrefitte. Goor illustrated many of Peyrefitte books and also made a number of works on various themes, many of which decorated the walls of Peyrefitte's Paris apartment. Goor's illustrations have also appeared in Montherlant's Diarium Juvenale.

→ Galerie des œuvres garçonnières de Gaston Goor

Illustrations pour des ouvrages particuliers :

→ Galerie des illustrations de Goor pour Les amitiés particulières

→ Galerie des illustrations de Goor pour L’oracle

→ Galerie des illustrations de Goor pour Le satyricon

Biography

Gaston Marie Charles Leo Gibson was born in Lunéville on 26 October 1902. He was the son of Auguste Léon Goor and Marie Angèle Berthe Becker.

At the age of seventeen, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts of Nancy where he continued his studies with attendance relative. In 1925, he left his native Lorraine and WINS Paris to enter in Amédée Ozenfant, founder with Le Corbusier and the movement called "purism" review the spirit new. He was introduced to modern art and made the knowledge of Picasso, Matisse, Lurçat, Max Jacob.

According to his own statements, it is a walk in Versailles that brings him back to the classical and the fact away permanently theoretical advances in the field of art. Through the André Salmon, he met André Gide that directs to the Illustrator profession. Gibson then becomes almost official illustrator of the Editions of the Capitol that publish André Gide, Léon Daudet (the journey of Shakespeare), Charles Maurras (three from tales of the Paradise Road), François Mauriac (God and Mammon, three great men before God), Pierre Mac Orlan. There is also the occasional illustrator of the Horizons de France editions, editions to the sign of Pot case (he illustrated the nun of Diderot and Voltaire naive) and Trianon (Restif de La Bretonne) editions.

He worked for the colonial exposition of 1929, then performs different work of decoration for individuals. The tables he paints, on the other hand, do not meet the desired success. It then performs a long study trip to the Morocco and returned more briefly working for the Department of fine arts in 1933, and then moved to Hyères, where his family settled.

Portrait of Nino, 1936 drawing with color pencil, 19 × 18 cm (for my Renaud Icard page frontispiece)

Portrait of Nino, 1936

Enhanced color pencil, 19 × 18 cm

(my Renaud Icard page frontispiece)

It is through an array of 1.50 m., depicting a young naked man (Jean Joerimann) at the bottom, it comes in connection with a fan, writer and gallery owner Lyon Renaud Icard (1886-1971). It allows it to expose its works in Lyon, in his the French Art Gallery, and a friendship developed between the two men. Gaston Goor graciously made the illustrations of fairytale Renaud Icard, my page, which will be published posthumously in 2009 by the fifths-leaves editions. During this period of his life, Gibson is especially applied to interior decorations of on behalf of wealthy clients and art lovers. Among these is the owner of Châteaubriant hotel, the grand hotel of luxury of the town of Hyères, who is the father of Jean Joerimann, model illustrations of my page and which Gibson is in love. The absence of reciprocity of this love causes suffering which his correspondence with Renaud Icard testifies.

Called by the famous architect Maurice Novarina (1907-2002) to decorate the Church of Douvaine in Haute-Savoie, Gibson moved in this Department in 1942. His painting is not restricted to the murals: he also liked to paint in the style of classical artists easily identifiable.

According to Peyrefitte, who collected his written testimony, it would be because Gaston Goor is accused by German police had helped the Jews to cross the Swiss border that he was forced to accept "voluntary worker" status in Germany. Gibson finds himself in the camp was near Zittau, in Saxony. Nevertheless, he is spotted for his talents, and is hired to the achievement of important works of art which, in February 1945, the destruction of the city of Dresden by Allied bombing put an end.

After the war, Gibson first returned to Paris, where he tried to work for the manufacture de Sèvres; then he moved to Cannes on the occasion of an exhibition. He contracted a marriage with a Polish émigré, Marie Angèle Zajackowski, in May 1947. Goor is then invited back to England by an architect of gardens to large sculptures. It is developing on this occasion a method of molding without metal frame. It was during his stay in England he is asked by editions Flammarion and Roger Peyrefitte to make illustrations of particular friendships which appear in 1953. This work marks a turning point in the life of Goor, who then returned to the France and settled in Paris. Roger Peyrefitte becomes for him a real patron, seeking to achieve a number of erotic works (as an illustration of the "Pergamon Ephebe" episode of the Satyricon), and presenting it to wealthy friends who pass to Goor many commands.

Less is known about the rest of the life of Gaston Goor, marked by some disappointments such as the non-publication of his illustrations for the Satyricon (not to be confused with those almost pornographic, the only episode of the Ephebe of Pergamon).

Removed in Hyères, he died of cancer at the hospital in Toulon on December 13, 1977.

Sources

Roger Peyrefitte - the dell'innominato. New secret words. A. Michel, 1989. pp. 201-203.

Jean-Claude Féray - the history of my Page, his illustrations, and friendship Goor-Icard, in Renaud Icard - my Page. Fifths-leaves, 2009. pp. 157-195.

Correspondence Gaston Goor - Renaud Icard. (1932-1960) [Al (part.)

Gaston Gibson quotes

"On a fear to show that there is some pleasure to reproduce the life in that it was healthier, and that a water pot has the same value, emotionally, than a beautiful body, which is absurd." [Letter to Renaud Icard, Hyères, dated 7 October 1934.]

"Inside, I threw myself in art as others in the water. A suicide. "[Letter to Renaud Icard, Messery (Hte-Savoie) dated May 18, 1943].

A few works

Teenager removing his shorts, 1968 Pastel 16.8 × 9.9 cm (fig. for the oracle of Roger Peyrefitte) private Coll.

Teenager removing his shorts, 1968

Pastel, 16.8 × 9.9 cm (fig. for the oracle of Roger Peyrefitte)

Private al.

Most of the easily accessible Gaston Goor production consists of works of illustration for the edition. His paintings are almost all in private collections.

10 lithographs for the loves of Ovid, translation of Henri Bornecque, Paris, Flammarion (classics of love), 1953, 238 pp., 20 × 14 cm (edition limited to 4 000 ex.) 

24 lithographs for particular friendships by Roger Peyrefitte, Paris, Flammarion, 1953, 2 vol., [4] - 180 p.-12 pl., [4] - 180 p.-12 pl., 29 × 20 cm (edition limited to 740 ex.) 

32 illustrations in the book my Renaud Icard Page - Editions fifths-leaves, 2009-(ISBN 978-2953288513)

Original

→ Galerie des illustrations de Goor pour Les amitiés particulières