Reine Mazoyer

Reine Mazoyer (born 6 January 1944) is a French plastic artist who describes herself as a "non-realistic figurative artist". The wife of the late film director , she collaborated with the set design for some of his films and television series and also acted in some. More recently, while continuing her career as an artist, she has directed short films and has illustrated books of nonsense verse.

Early life and education Mazoyer was born in Montbrison in the Loire département in central France on 6 January 1944. Her father was an upholsterer, decorator, and antique dealer, while her mother was a seamstress and upholsterer. Both her father and grandfather were amateur painters and she has said that she owes her vocation to her father.

Career

Painting and sculpture She met the film director Robert Mazoyer (1929–1999) in Paris, and they married in 1965. They had one son, Julien (1966–1992). She first exhibited in Paris in 1973, having previously shown in Brittany. She also worked with her husband as a set designer (e.g. in ), and appeared in some of his films and series, notably the 13-part television series . In 1997, her husband produced a 23-minute documentary called Le Portrait du peintre (The Portrait of the Painter) in which he followed his wife in the act of creating a painting. Original music for the soundtrack was by Jacques Loussier.

In 1973, Mazoyer won the Pierre David-Weill Prize for Drawing, awarded by the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Paris. In 2024 she contributed a group of colourful ceramic masks to decorate a 700-year-old olive tree in the gardens of the Château de la Bastie d'Urfé in Forez in the Loire. It was called the Tree of Love and Reconciliation. Mazoyer has also published L'Etang aux trente-six sourires (The Pond of 36 Smiles - 2009), a series of pastel drawings on black ink accompanied by haikus, inspired by her life as a young girl; Souvenirs d'Enfance, a book to accompany her exhibition at the Espace Trait Personnel in Paris in 2007; and Portraits d'Écrivains (Portraits of Writers - 1993), a series of drawings and water colours of writers, both friends and her favourite writers, including John Lennon and Albert Camus, accompanied by short texts.

Filmmaking Mazoyer also became a director of several short films. In 2013, she released À la recherche de Santo Modico, made in Brazil and inspired by her late husband's 1961 film, Santo Modico. Earlier, she had collaborated with her British partner to produce a series of shorts about Friendship. To do this they tracked down many of the boys with whom her partner had been to secondary school in England. Filming took them to Australia, Gambia and Rome, as well as England.

2024. Paris Arty-Show, Paris

2022. Rencontres imaginées, Musée d'Allard, Montbrison

2017. Rencontres imaginées, Bordeaux

2015. Portraits d'artistes, Paris

2013. Apocalypses (Installation), Lyon

2011. Esprit d’enfance, parcours d'installations, Montbrison

2009. Spirit of Childhood, London, England

2009. Pastels, Montbrison

2007. Souvenirs d'enfance, Lyon

2002. Le temps des cafés, Paris

2000. MAC2000 Art Contemporain, Paris

1999. Espace Chatelet Victoria, Paris

1998. Le Manteau de Lucrèce, St Etienne

1997. Le labyrinthe au-delà des forêts (Installation) Paris

1996. Le tremplin, Lyon

1995. Passions d’eau, Paris

1994. MAC 2000 Art contemporain, Paris; Le Mans; Offenburg

1993. Portraits d'écrivains, St. Etienne

1992. Galerie Lilianne François; Galerie Magda Danisz, Paris; Galerie Alias, Paris

1991. Triennale du Pastel, Allonnes, Sarthe

1990. Mac2000 Art Contemporain, Paris

1989. Hérétiques, Mac 2000 Art Contemporain, Paris

1988. Hôtel de ville, Garches

1984. Chez un collectionneur, Paris

1983. Galerie Matisse, Vichy

1979. Galerie Aéroport d'Orly, Paris

1977. Maison de la Culture, St Etienne

1975. Galerie Annick Gendron, Paris

1969. Empreintes et reliefs, Kerdruc, Brittany