Mady de La Giraudière, born April 3, 1922 in Lavelanet, Ariège, is a painter, illustrator, lithographer and ... still a native of Ariège.
Mady spent her childhood in Lavelanet, in a family that for many years devoted its activity to the development of the textile industry. When she finished school at 19, she wanted to enter the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but her father, a leading figure in Lavelanet's industry, vetoed the idea. Passionate about drawing and painting from an early age, she worked on her own.
Around 1955, she met Anatole Jakovsky, “Le pape des Naïfs”, who guided her to overcome her lack of artistic training and demanded a lot of work from her in the hope of organizing her first exhibition in Paris. She painted around a hundred canvases in 3 years, forty of which were selected by Anatole Jakovsky, who organized her first exhibition at the Henri Benezit gallery in Paris.
This exhibition was a real event, as it was the second devoted to a single naive painter in the capital.
In 1997, along with her daughters Chin and Nang, she was selected to take part in the third edition of “La vie de château” at the French Cultural Center in New York, along with thirty-nine other French artists and craftsmen.
Her paintings can be found in naive art museums in Nice, Vicq, Laval, d'Aubigny (Oise), Lausanne, London, Tokyo and New York. Seven of his works, paintings measuring 1.70 m by 1.30 m and depicting the life of Christ, are featured in the Lavelanet church.
The artist also helped renovate the town's marriage hall.
In 1987, Paul Guth awarded her the Médaille des Arts et Lettres, hailing her as “Our Lady of naive painting”.
In 2012, Ariège's Jean Pierre Bel, President of the French Senate, also decorated her, declaring: “Mady, this is the very soul of all human societies”, and adding: "Your work is rich and varied; here, the words conquest and generosity reign. Conquest, because your painting has set out to meet the vast world; generosity of character, which you have shown throughout your life; and finally, generosity towards Lavelanet. Your roots are in Lavelanet, you contribute to its radiance... you are here everywhere, for our greatest delight".
Mady de la Giraudière died on February 24, 2018 in Lavelanet.
On Monday December 16, 2024, a rue Mady de la Giraudière was inaugurated in the Foulon district of Pamiers.
https://www.madydelagiraudiere.com/
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