Roger Chapelain-Midy

Roger Chapelain-Midy

1904 - 1992

Roger Chapelain-Midy was born in Paris in August 1904 and was a painter and theatre designer. Chapelain-Midy trained at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts and also in the atelier Cormon. After being released from military service in Rhenanie, Chapelain-Midy enrolled at the Academie de Montparnasse. In 1927 he exhibited at the Salon de Automne and became a member in the same year. After 1929, Chapelain-Midy's work could be found at the Salon des Independents as well as at the Salon des Tuileries. He travelled extensively to Europe and the Americas and his work was exhibited widely. Amongst others he exhibited at the Exposition d'Art Francais de Londres in 1938; the Venice Biennale in 1937; Exposition d'Art Francais de Bruxelles, Berlin, Amsterdam and Namur in 1938; Aarhus (Denmark), Bucharest, Buenos-Aires, Chicago and New York in 1939; Lisbon and Barcelona in 1942 and Madrid in 1943.

Chapelain-Midy was also a talented designer and carried out the decor for the Town Hall in Paris's 4th Arrondissement, the foyer of the Nouveau Theatre du Palais de Challiot, the Agricultural Institute and the Natural History Museum. He was commissioned to create a number of drawings for four wall tapestries on the theme of the four elements for the notable Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins as well as a collection of lithographs for Vitrines de Ch. Vildrac and many drawings of La Fenetre des Rouet for G. Simenon.

Between the two wars he executed a number of vast paintings and exhibited at the highly celebrated Ecole de Paris where he caught the public attention and was an influential artist in his time. After the war Chapelain-Midy had many exhibitions most notably in Paris in 1947, New York in 1954, Musee Galliera in Paris in 1955, London in 1957, Geneva in 1958 and 1966 and Paris in 1962 and 1967 with two retrospectives at the Musee de Bordeaux in 1965 and Nice in 1968.

Later in his career Chapelain-Midy designed for the L'Opera Paris including the set and costumes for Indes Galantes and La Flute Enchantee and after 1955 he was made a professor at the L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris.

In 1938 Chapelain-Midy was awarded the Carnegie Prize in Pittsburgh and was made chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur and Officier des Arts et Lettres.

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