Valère BERNARD

Their story.

Valère Bernard was a French painter, engraver, writer and poet from Occitan-speaking Provence. He left a large body of painted and engraved work, which continued to be published after his death. He entered the Marseille School of Fine Arts in 1875. He was accepted at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teachers were Alexandre Cabanel and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. He lived in Paris from 1881 to 1886 and then returned to Provence.

He was initially attracted to sculptureand painting, but his work as an engraver is remarkable. Back in Marseille, during his first exhibitions, critics hailed his talent in both etching and painting. Among others, he delivered an engraved suite entitled Guerro (1893-1895), variations on the theme of death, of great graphic intensity, inspired by Francisco Goya.

He joined the Félibrige. He composed his first poems in the Marseilles dialect, then began a body of fiction in which he showed his sensitivity and compassion for the humble and marginalized. Elected majoral of the Félibrige in 1894, he held the position of Capoulié (leader) from 1909 to 1919. A proponent of a renaissance of the Occitan language in all its linguistic varieties, he wrote in a language he elaborated to unify Oc and Catalan.

On January 22, 1903, he was elected to the 32nd chair of the Académie de Marseille. A professor of art history at the École des Beaux-Arts, he became blind and died on October 6, 1936. Valère Bernard is buried in Marseille's Saint-Pierre cemetery.

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