Ange Boaretto artist - art brut

Bootmaker born in Padua in 1920, Ange Boaretto put shoes on the feet of artists and celebrities from the cinema, theatre and literature of the Côte d'Azur from his workshop in the Hauts de Cagnes sur Mer.  Picasso's official bootmaker, he married Paul Éluard's daughter Cécile, and was her last husband.
His raw, singular work used the bootmaker's techniques and materials; the pleasure of creating led him to paint, to glue pieces of leather and boot buttons onto canvas, a far cry from the abstract currents in vogue at the time.

"It was my profession as a bootmaker, which I practised for 35 years, and the habit of cutting leather that led me to carry out this original undertaking, both through the primitive technique that I invented and through my subjective vision of scenes from everyday life in the country and the folklore events that I experienced and took part in. So it was as a witness that I wanted to produce these texts and images, which I have called my own. Bible."

The BulletinNo. 13, June-July-August-September 1979, Centre Georges Pompidou.