Fresques et murs peints - Esprit est-tu là ? de Grataloup

"Spirit, are you there?
"I wanted this fairy-woman, in her gesture of giving and in the nimbus above her, to be real while at the same time not being real.
She is not surrounded in her drawing, quite the contrary. She appears in her immateriality, almost merging with the gold of her form, which itself leads to mystery.
The limestone rock, which is always crumbling, is also a foundation for the beauty of the place where I was born."

Guy-Rachel Grataloup was born in Nantua on 4 June 1935 and died on 16 January 2022 in Plaisir in the Yvelines. The house where he was born faces the fir-black mountains, not far from the romantic setting of Lake Sylans. This setting was to have a lasting influence on his future painting. In 1945-1953, he attended collège and then lycée.
He was awarded the Institut de France prize for the Casa Velázquez in Madrid in 1966, and stayed there from 1966 to 1967. He discovered the wonders of the Prado and the Escorial, and travelled Castile and Andalusia with the composer Antoine Tisné. He met the painters Millares, Villalba and Pablo Serrano, and the composers Joaquín Rodrigo and Luis de Pablo.
He was awarded second prize in painting at the Prix de Rome in 1967. 1967 marked the last of the "Prix de Rome" as organised since 1663, with studies in "petite and grande loges".

In 1970, he left for the Villa Medicis, then directed by Balthus. He only stayed a few months at the Villa Medicis, as he was offered a position at the École supérieure des arts appliqués Duperré, which he accepted.

He was awarded the Agrégation in 1970 and appointed director of studies in the Art and Design section at ENS Cachan. A lecturer at the Sorbonne, he was also research director of the Art and Industrial Creation department, then founder and director of the Centre de recherche en art et création industrielle (CREACI), until 1996, when he decided to retire from the Ministry of Education to devote himself entirely to his painting.