Gérard Bregnard
Born in 1920.
Died in 2003.
From the age of 14, he worked successively in a pharmacy, a shoe factory, for a gardener, and then for sixteen years in a watch-case factory in Porrentruy. In 1966, he spent six months in Canada, financed by a Canadian government work grant.
His painted output passed through several documented phases: one inspired by Surrealism (1950–1955), followed by a Constructivist phase (1955–1959), and, from 1959 onwards, an orientation described as «baroque in spirit, Surrealist». Alongside painting, he practised sculpture and undertook several public commissions, including a welded-iron sculpture for the Coop in Wangen (1962), a welded-iron fountain for the Coop in Delémont, a mural for the Lycée cantonal in Porrentruy, and a polyptych for the choir of St‑Charles Church in Porrentruy.
He regularly collaborated on illustrated editions: illustrations for Feu pour feu (Alexandre Voisard, 1965), Explorations (Weber‑Perret, 1965), Sialam (Jean Osiris, 1973), Sur le pont Moulinet (Pierre‑André Marchand, 1981), and an illustrated edition of Jules Verne — Le mariage de M. Anselme des Tilleuls (1991).
In terms of professional associations, he was a member of the Institut jurassien des sciences, des lettres et des arts and was among the founders of the Société des peintres et sculpteurs jurassiens (SPSJ).
He held numerous exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad; a retrospective was announced on 11 March 2010. The selected bibliography mentions him in entries and publications such as Bruno Kehrli (ASJE, 1971), Christine Salvadé (ed.), Sculptures du Jura (1993), and Thierry Mertenat et al., Traces (1996).
His name also appears in the «Peintres neuchâtelois» list of the Galerie des Annonciades.
The documented elements indicate a practice divided between private studios, public commissions, and publishing collaborations, active chiefly during the second half of the twentieth century.
