Gérard Deschamps

His first exhibition took place in 1955 at the Gallery Fachetti in Paris. At this time he abandoned oil painting, which he said lacks flexibility, and turned to collages, incorporating pictures of items from the Manufrance catalog.

In 1957, he exhibited, at the Galerie du Haut Pave in Paris, his first paintings made of rags and pleating that announced New Realism. In November 1957, he was sent to Algeria for 27 months, where he took part in the famous 1958 counter-attack and the operation "jumelles". Released in 1960, he met Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé and officially joined the New Realist group in 1961, a year after its official founding.

With pleating, he wanted to renovate the excesses of tissue, which he said "were the guardians of the breath of art to the West, even in periods of decline. Indeed, what would be the victory of Samothrace without his thin wetted coat that made it the ancestor of compressed cars, the ultimate creation that was inspired to me by my lack of financial means". He specialized in rags, female underwear, found at a rag called Chatton. These cloths, then industrial Japanese tissues, were invading his workshops at La Châtre and Rue Gambetta in Paris. His compositions containing female underwear – for example "le Rose de la Vie", a blend of predominantly pink panties, corsets, bras, girdles and garters – caused him to be censored several times.

In 1961, he found a new mine: U.S. Army tarps with fluorescent colors. He also worked on rags from Japanese and Belgian advertising as well as sheets of plastic kitchenware patchworks. In the same period, he used armor plates and metal enclosures that served to isolate the aircraft engines, marked by iridescent heat. In 1965, developing his military metaphors, he created the "bananas", made of folded and colored wire, which can be up to 8 meters long and remind strips military decorations. He invented the moiré patterns by overlapping metal grids.

In 1970, as he disagreed with the Parisian art world, Gerard Deschamps moved to La Châtre, home of his grandparents. His creative activity is ongoing, as will again be shown regularly since 1978 in exhibitions and galleries in Paris and abroad. By 1980, Deschamps gave his vision of a leisure society, with his playful outfits, made of assemblies of swimwear, balloons, skateboards and surfboards, which may bring Pop Art to mind. In the 1990s, he created colorful beach ball blends packed in nets, and then, in 2001, skateboards. Finally he presented his recent Pneumostructures, which are assemblies, or not, of buoys, inflatable air mattresses, or other objects related to a child's imagination.

2011 Lieu D Art Contemporain L Arboretum Argenton sur Creuse

2012   Wave Attack ; l Identité Remarquable  Orleans 
2013  Deschamps / Hains  Musée de l Hospice Saint Roch Issoudun
2013  Deschamps / Maucotel  Lieu  D Art Contemporain  Montlucon
2014  Deschamps  : Ma Premiere Galerie Paris 
2016  Du Passé Au Present : Galerie Gilles Peyroulet Paris 
2018  Paris Art FAIR  Galerie Grimont 
2018   "Skate Boards et Street Art " Luxembourg Art Fair

• New Realism

• Dictionnaire de l'art moderne et contemporain, nlle. éd., Paris, Éditions Hazan, 2006, 194 pages (French)
• www.gerarddeschamps.org (French)
• Gérard Deschamps, homo accessoirus, interview with Hélène Kelmachter, Actes Sud, 1998 (French)
• Gerard Deschamps , Retrospective Musee de L Hospice Saint Roch Issoudun et Musée des Beaux Arts de Dole
• Gerard deschamps , Galerie Martine et Thibault de La Chatre FIAC 2009
• Gerard Deschamps L Arboretum Lieu d Art Contemporain Argenton Sur Creuse 2011
• Gerard Deschamps Editions du Regard 2017
• Gerard Deschamps Editions Art Passion Luxembourg Art Fair 2018

• Non official website dedicated to Gérard Deschamps, in French, with many pictures