Biographies


CLARA HALTER

JEAN-MICHEL WILMOTTE

 

Clara Halter was born, lives and works in Paris.

From 1967 to 1977, she ran the review Eléments, the first international publication for Peace in the Middle East. In 1976 she discovered her true vocation – drawing – just as her husband Marek Halter, a painter at the time, published his first novel. As if of one accord, they exchanged means of expression.

This is not to say that Clara Halter has given up working with letters and signs. Though now, these tiny repetitive modules, worked under a magnifying glass, contain nothing but script. Script as a form, deliberately devoid of meaning. To accomplish such original, minute work, she needs solitude, to withdraw from the world. But not from time, for Clara Halter draws time. Not until 1992 did she agree to exhibit her work for the first time. Since then, she has often shown her work in France and abroad: the Georges Verney-Caron Gallery in Lyon-Villeurbanne, 1994; the Nathalie Obadia Gallery in Paris, 1996; several exhibits at the FNAC, a major home entertainment store in Paris, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Monaco and Lyons from 1997 to 1999; the Osiris gallery in Brussels, 1998; participation in the collective “Scripts, Words, and Text” exhibit conceived by Philippe Piguet at the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation in Jouy-en-Josas; the “Contemporary Script and Signs” at the J. F. Champollion Museum in Figeac, 2000; frescos for the French Pavilion at the International Fair in Hanover, 2000; and finally “War or Peace” at the Hiroshima City Contemporary Art Museum, 2005.

In 2000, Clara Halter took possession of a single word – PEACE – that she illustrated ad infinitum in every language and alphabet. This led to the creation, together with architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, of three peace monuments: first the Wall for Peace in Paris on the Champ de Mars;
then the Peace Tower in Saint Petersburg for the town's tercentenary celebration in 2003; and today, in 2005, the Gates of Peace to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Since 2000, the artist has conceived a number of multiples for creators including Lancel, Lanvin, Christofle, Montblanc, Omas and Pierre Frey.

Her work is exhibited at the Obadia gallery in Paris and figures in several private collections and at the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (National Contemporary Art Fund).