Alfred Manessier

Alfred Manessier (5 December 1911, Saint-Ouen – 1 August 1993, Orléans)[1] was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new School of Paris and the Salon de Mai.

There was a family precedent for creative work, as the grandfather was a decorative stonemason[3] while his father and uncle had studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts at Abbeville.

[6] The couple was given the task to employ and reside with 50 unemployed artists for March and April to create a substantial project of 19,000 square feet (1,800 m2) of artwork.

[7] In 1940, expecting the birth of his son, he found work as a farmhand to support the growing family[8] but by 1941 he returned to Paris to exhibit in the Gallery Braun show "20 Young Painters" that ushered into France the non-figurative movement.

Demoralized by the Occupation and war, at the monastery he was deeply moved by the ancient garb and art, chants and worship, rhythms of work and silence by the monks.

[16] These other mediums were ongoing supplements to his painting, throughout his career (selected theatre work includes a 1960 Nervi Italy mounting of the Decameron involving 340 costumes and 18 sets, costumes for a 1963 production of Galileo Galilei at Theatre National Populaire, Paris; selected stained glass work includes 1952 project at All Saints Church in Basel, 1957 project at Chapel of Ste Therese in Nord, 1959 at Munsterkirche in Essen, 1964 at St Gereau in Cologne, and 1968 for Paris' Convent of the Soeurs de l'Assomption; selected tapestry work includes 1952 commission for State of France, 1957 benediction cape for a Nord church, and a 1969 commission for the National Arts Center in Ottawa).