Exhibition of paintings by Charrier and Gagnepain, and photographs from ‘Hommage aux demoiselles de Rochefort’ by Marcel Thomas.

To mark the 60th anniversary of *Les Demoiselles de Rochefort*, the painters Erik Charrier and Gérard Gagnepain invited Marcel Thomas (1909–2000) to present photographs of the artists featured in Jacques Demy’s musical.

ERIK CHARRIER
He worked as a science and technology teacher but also taught drawing and painting in the evenings.
A student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1981 to 1988, Erik Charrier has been painting since the age of eighteen and writing for over thirty years.
Admitted to the Taylor Foundation in 2023, he has exhibited every year at the COMPARAISONS fair (Grand Palais, Paris) since 2024. Member of the Maison des Artistes.
Here, he presents recent drawings from his latest trip to the Canary Islands, on the island of La Gomera. He creates them with a continuous line and then adds colour. Also on display are his latest oil paintings on canvas from the ‘Fenêtres sur’ series, as well as his ‘Hommage à Bonnard’, a large five-panel work measuring 3.50 m x 2 m.

MARCEL THOMAS ‘Homage to the Young Ladies of Rochefort’
Born in 1909, near Longwy. From 1947 until his death in 2000, Marcel Thomas was an amateur photographer with a unique destiny. He devoted himself to his passion as soon as he left the tailor’s workshop where he worked in the Sentier district of Paris. He would set off to photograph ALL the artists of the moment. You’d spot him outside grand hotels, on film sets, backstage at theatres, cabarets, the opera, concert halls, and under the big tops… This is how he immortalised his idols: the stars visiting Paris. His body of work features over 5,000 celebrities who played along with his project. He left behind a collection of 90,000 photographs. Presented here are the portraits of the main actors from Jacques Demy’s film “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort”, as well as the publications released by the PHOTOSTARS ASSOCIATION. The Espace Miramar in Cannes will host 100 photographs by Marcel Thomas throughout January 2027.

GERARD GAGNEPAIN
Author and publisher, graphic designer, ceramist and painter. He has produced numerous books on photography (featuring Robert Doisneau and Willy Ronis) as well as works reflecting his passions: Carmen Amaya, Maria Callas, the Fratellini brothers, the Médrano Circus... In 2006, he founded the PHOTOSTARS ASSOCIATION, which has enabled him to organise over 100 exhibitions (in France and abroad, including a tribute to Jacques Demy in Singapore) and to publish, amongst other things, collections dedicated to the photographs of Marcel Thomas.
Here, he presents his “pochades”, ink-on-paper works in earthy tones whose style lies somewhere between the figurative and the abstract. These are accomplished works in which, despite the speed of execution, the balance of forms and colours prevails in an expressionist harmony.

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