André Borderie, pour l’homme simplement, exh. cat., Musées d’Angers, Angers, 1998, for further reading Pierre Staudenmeyer, La céramique française des années 50, Paris, 2001, pp. 120-27 for further reading
Catalogue Essay
As curator Françoise de Loisy notes, André Borderie was born twice: in 1923 and again in 1948, when he resigned his position as a telecommunications inspector to become an artist. Years earlier, while browsing a bookseller’s boîte along the Seine, he had fallen for a drawing by Paul Klee—a decisive moment on Borderie’s road to conversion. From then until his death in 1998, he produced a wide range of works including drawings, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, furniture, and weavings. Like Klee, Borderie was a natural draftsman whose lines, like spun silk, never break; they attenuate without losing strength or elasticity. As with his predecessor, Borderie underpins his figures with bold fields of color. Klee’s epitaph might also serve to describe the younger artist’s work: “…closer to the heart of creation than usual…”