 |
 |
 |
The ancestor of Gemmail was born from the meeting of two men: physicist Emmanuel MALHERBE NAVARRE, nicknamed "the man possessed with light", and a contemporary painter, Jean CROTTI, nicknamed "the man possessed with colour".olor
|
|
|
|
|
The ancestor of Gemmail was born from the meeting of two men: physicist Emmanuel MALHERBE NAVARRE, nicknamed "the man possessed with light", and a contemporary painter, Jean CROTTI, nicknamed "the man possessed with colour".olor
|
|
Jean CROTTI's first Gemmail, created in 1936, reminded one of the technique of pointillism in painting. The shape of the glass pieces was then due to mere chance. Fascinated by this new means of expression, Roger MALHERBE-NAVARRE kept working on the technical and artistic developments of Gemmail.
|
 |
|
He left for New York to restore an abandoned piece of work by Jean CROTTI, and then designed a semi-abstract masterpiece, whose inexpressible beauty was to give a radical change to his life.
All of America moved around, President PINAY came to see them, along with Nelson ROCKEFELLER and Mrs. ROOSEVELT. The Gemmists then became the talk of the town in New York. |
 |
 |
PICASSO, COCTEAU, ROUAULT, BRAQUE and many another artist, became enthusiastic about this luminous flesh born from the piling up of glass layers. In 1955, Roger MALHERBE NAVARRE founded the MALHERBE Workshop. Fascinated by the incredible potential power of this new means of expression, he became involved in the artistic world now available to him, accompanied by his young Gemmists. Among the great contemporary painting Masters who became interested in Gemmail, COCTEAU conceived a passion for it and decided to support Roger MALHERBE NAVARRE. In 1957, they created the International Prize of Gemmail, which has been promoting an artist every year since then, by awarding him the title of "Painter of Light".
|
|
Jean COCTEAU's death, the disappearing in tragic circumstances of Roger's brother (Christian MALHERBE) and of some young Gemmists of the Workshop, were to shake the spirits of the team, but the wish expressed by one of the young departed stirred the mystical attitude of the Workshop's artists, leading to the creation of a Gemmail Museum in Lourdes.
|
|
From that time on, the Gemmists carried out achievements by interpreting the great classical painters, what Roger calls "the Louvre School of the Gemmists".
|
 |
 |
Roger,MALHERBE NAVARRE, the creating authority of this new means of expression, is now 89. His hands have out hundreds and thousands of glass pieces. Gemmail in its present state, whose making keeps on being perpetuated, was born from his hands.
|
