Jean-Pierre Velly
Welcome to the website dedicated to the French artist
Jean-Pierre Velly (1943-1990)
there will be more material in English on this website: for now read the essay by Ivana Rossi
To friends and / or collectors of Jean-Pierre Velly
We are undertaking the catalogue raisonné of the entire body of work by Jean-Pierre Velly as well as a full biography. If you have works by this artist or know somebody who owns etchings, drawings, watercolor or paintings; if you have met the artist, help us to be as thorough as possible.
or write to:
ADAJPV Jean-Pierre Velly Archive
M. Pierre Higonnet
3, impasse du Vidamé 60380 Gerberoy, France
cell. +33 (0)6 09 65 78 98
“His work is baroque, surreal, allegorical and even apocalyptic in the sense that is suggests a vision of the future that passes through destruction on its way to Utopia. There is an extreme proliferation and at the same time an immense space in many of these works. The artist himself holds the promise of an unusual conjunction of virtuosity and driving purpose”.
Michael Gibson, Around the Galleries in London and Paris,
in «International Herald Tribune», 1975).
Old Oak in autumn - Vieux Chêne en Automne 1989 watercolour, cm 70 x 100
you can still purchase the beautiful catalogue
(216 pages, 140 color reproductions
500 copies only - sorry no English in this book)
write to us:
JEAN-PIERRE VELLY was born in Audierne (Finistère, Brittany, France) in 1943. He attended the Art School of Toulon and joined in 1965 the l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux arts of Paris - ENSBA - (the Paris Fine Art Institute). In 1966, Jean-Pierre Velly was awarded the “Grand Prix de Rome” (Rome Grand Prize Award) for etching. 
He therefore moved to Rome and lived and worked at the French Academy in Villa Médicis from 1967 to 1970; the Director at the time was the celebrated painter Balthus. He chose onwards to live and work in the small town of Formello, in the Roman countryside. In 1990, he drowns in the Lake of Bracciano in a boating accident; he was only 46. His body was never recovered.
You will discover on this educational website his biography in French or in Italian; the entire body of etchings, a selection of his drawings, watercolors and paintings; his writings, many presentations, critism, essays about him and his art, all of the catalogues published on his works (.pdf files), press articles in text, a full bibliography, many photographs, as well as audio and video files (to view under Quicktime).
You can also see numerous etchings and artworks by artists that Velly admired: Old Masters and by contemporary artists
