"... And immediately, on the ground floor, you will be surprised to discover, in full action, Bernard Loriot, Honfleurais painter, in his studio. ( Bernard Loriot, some of whose works we have already had the pleasure of admiring, exhibited at Pont-Audemer at the same time as those of his friends Fischer and Leterreux).

Come in frankly: the best welcome awaits you, especially if, in glowing terms, you talk about Honfleur. Because Loriot is not only a painter, but he is a poet and that is all it takes to make him love his old town, his old basin, his estuary so changing, his skies so special.

Nowhere better than in his studio you will have the proof, taking advantage of this diffuse light which, under an overcast sky, makes you burst forth the color of the canvases. A deep harmony of blue-green tones, highlighted by a few light touches of pale ochre, make you see these landscapes you love so much in a perfect way. Because Loriot does not sacrifice anything to the precision of the drawing!

A talented watercolourist, he brings the same precision to his canvases, without the bill suffering, far from it! Making the best use of the estuary's changing lighting, he follows the light in the variation of its tones... And this is not one of the least charms of his painting, not bothering himself with the data of any school and refusing to sacrifice himself to a certain snobbism. Loriot knows how to harmonize reality with the painter's vision. "

"Bernard Loriot is currently exhibiting in Honfleur, and those who have been following this courageous artist for years can take stock. Starting from a sincere amateurism and limited means, Loriot gradually entered the game of the semi-professionals of painting. In Honfleur, where production is abundant, one can guess how harsh this approach was. Now admitted at all Honfleur, which is, in summer, a small "all-Paris", a regular exhibitor in the salt cellar, Loriot does not rest on his laurels.

The 1967 exhibition marks the bursting of the qualities of this painter in whom the spectator suddenly finds a graphic acuity sometimes reminiscent of Georges Mattieu, and a taste for lights and notations inherited from Boudin. But one thing is the intention of, another is the way to express oneself. It is by freeing herself from meticulousness, thanks to a very alert writing, that Loriot was able to go further in the search for a personal style. The Honfleur landscape is privileged here, intervenes as a self-biography; it is not yet very certain that Bernard Loriot can transport elsewhere the qualities that we recognize him. In still life, this makes him seem less comfortable. But most of the exhibition, being made of sky, water and shores, it would be wrong to ignore your pleasure. Figurative, but absolutely not slave, readable, but sometimes inspired, Loriot responds to the idea that millions of amateurs around the world have of painting, those who have remained in the classical spirit and accept that the period is represented by the artist's personality.

Bernard Loriot now excels in transcribing, transposing and composing excellent tone turns, moving away from ordinary reality to achieve harmonies that respect the order of nature. It is moving towards a certain almost monochrome favorism where differences are expressed only in relationships. It takes all the subtlety of a well-developed pictorial technique to be properly represented at this level of difficulty. Bernard Loriot is currently one of the young painters in the estuary who best reflects tradition in that he works and cannot accept the easy effects of accidental success. All the elders honoured the painting in this way. "

"About thirty oils, a few watercolours, a drawing, concretizing his work of the last six months, represent Bernard Loriot at the exhibition he opened on Saturday, Augustin-Normand Square. A priori, no revolution: the painter keeps his acid harmonies, his yellows and blues that bathe his landscapes in a strange atmosphere. No revolution, of course, but a beautiful evolution. The set proposed this year shows a complete unity. Both by the drawing, nervous and precise, and by the material always used with discretion, without excessive impasto, but with a constant concern for the play of light and shadows....

And then, there are above all - a very recent burst of a long ripening - these small pages: water and coloured spots, where everything is said without any support; not even that of a pencil line... Thus were born beaches (a few silhouettes around a parasol or escape from the horizon beyond the still wet sand) and two ports of Honfleur. Everything is there, sensitivity, quivering, life... Several still lifes, solid composition and balance, a bouquet and a signal mast with extremely advanced linear research, complete this presentation with a beautiful outfit and that can be seen until August 15 included. "

"Honfleuraise painting is an activity which, like many other specialities, is done here and there and preferably in Paris with a label of origin or actually on the spot, both of which determine a movement which is ultimately beneficial to the finished product. This is to say that there are currently about a hundred painters in France from Honfleur, those who come, come back, work episodically on the coast and therefore deserve the label.

There are perhaps only a dozen of them left, in the most everyday sense of the word. These people escape nothing, because if Honfleur has happy( laughing), lively and happy summers, nothing will ever be worth the long winter meditation, the drip days, when autumn comes and we know that the end of the road of this exhilarating, fascinating Proustian-type boredom is in seven to eight months.

These modest reflections on the art of living an art, explain the slow and sure progression, the seriousness, the total identification with a school, of the painter Bernard Loriot who exhibits, as every summer that the estuary makes, 17 place Augustin Normand, a little far from the famous basin.

Bernard Loriot is a watercolourist whose pure class is confirmed year after year. That he tries with the obstinacy of the Normans to transpose his technique with water in a very diluted oil is certain. May he achieve happy results in this way too. But he is above all a painter of printing, an impressionist, if the word was not old-fashioned; how, however, to paint in Honfleur, without finding the quick gesture, the lightning notation of Monet, or Boudin? Everything goes so fast in this light that each breeze moves through the colourful accidents of the urban landscape on a pearl background.

It takes a master of painting science to follow nature's proposal. Loriot has no complexes about rediscovering Boudin's vivacity: there are worse references. The photo we are publishing replaces a long speech, to the point that on the deception of black and white, one might think it was a clever pastiche.

Don't worry, good people, Bernard Loriot has other colours, a curious and very personal palette of blood and blues, which is like the fawn perception of the Norman light. It is very difficult to continue an already old school: Bernard Loriot shows that it is not impossible with great sincerity, which must count in a career.

A local artist, without a legend, gold or cursed, Bernard Loriot took much longer than a stranger to establish himself in Honfleur. No one is a prophet, it is well known. But over the years, he has managed to make a place for himself in Honfleur, with this handful of painters who are desperately faithful, those who do not emigrate when the kiss comes.

It is not certain that this cure of solitude and reflection does not give talent... "

"We have known his green, yellow, dark - even tragic - periods of his incessant and obstinate research... passionate.

How passionate is this man, who can be seen every day, to walk with a measured and calm step along the quays of old Honfleur or the narrow streets that metamorphose to the rhythm of the seasons.... of the hours of the day. And then, suddenly, a kind of veil broke in front of Bernard Loriot, and it was the bursting... On his canvases, on his vellum, pink and blue spots began to dance, underlined here and there by a stroke of lemon, which coordinated, orchestrated with the white of the background to bring out landscapes whose spontaneity and sensitivity still add to the evocative force. Look carefully in a painting of Loriot or in his amazing watercolours: you will never find the support of a pencil line. Everything (shapes, perspectives) depends on the only spots of the brush placed just where it is necessary to "locate" the escape of houses along a quay, the hulls of boats and especially the characters: this extraordinary swarm of life that signs the artist's works. Fishermen, walkers, housewives with their provisions are busy, "vibrating", as the impalpable air that runs through the sky in pursuit of the clouds vibrates. The world of Loriot is original and personal. Impressionist? No... Although what he paints stems from the multiple impressions provided by the street scenes, the spectacle of a beach... And it is its merit that a single glance is enough, to the layman, to affirm: "It is a Loriot".

In short, a criterion that highlights the authentic personality of the artist who, mastering a hard-learned profession, knows how to escape from transcription, to brush up on abstraction, to return to an original staging of the subject. Amateurs are not mistaken and are beginning to compete for the works of Loriot that we saw this summer in Blonville and Bordeaux, as well as at the Marie Jane Garoche gallery, suburb of Saint-Honoré in Paris, for an important exhibition (some fifty oils, watercolours and drawings) that will open its doors on December 4 to close on Christmas Eve. At the same time, Loriot finished his second lithograph, "les jetées de Trouville et Deauville" which places him after his "quai st Etienne un jour de fête" among the most endearing painters in Honfleur. "

"Honfleur, Deauville, Blonville, some memories of Brittany: these are the themes chosen by Loriot for his visit to Paris. In other words, he remains true to himself. His watercolours and oils, like his pencils, express his happy life, in the face of the motives that are dear to him. His palette remains clear, whatever the technique, around the fiery blues and roses he has achieved in recent years after long research into a scale that was darker and more dramatic. It seems that his life, his work has become clearer. The black clouds have moved away, the air is lighter, the dancing shadows pass by, brightly filled with youth. The boats of his country are made aerial, the old houses have a new youth. His pencil studies are firm, human. We feel him as a man from home, having always lived among the sailors, the inhabitants of these ports so mundane in the summer, so alive in the winter with a more secret but much more true life. Loriot, an honfleurais painter, deserves his name. "

"Bernard Loriot's new exhibition at Marie Jane Garoche's house focuses on Paris, its great monuments, squares, gardens and above all on the artery of life that is the Seine. In the oils, he recreates Paris under its fantastic aspect, flown by clouds, quivering waters on which proud architectures stand. The watercolours take up the expression in minor tones, exalting the drupe lines of the houses more. The graphite drawings, some of which have a firm accent, show how well Loriot has mastered his expression. Notre-Dame seen from her bedside, the Pont-Neuf, the Pont des Arts are particularly happy. Honfleur is not forgotten, however, with its animation, its vitality and the charm of its quays. You have to be from the country to depict it with such love. "

"It is curiously the first time that Bernard Loriot - Honfleurais painter - has exhibited in Le Havre. He, who presents his works all over France but also in Belgium, Switzerland and Japan, this artist whose reputation is becoming increasingly famous to historian and art critic René Huyghe, had therefore never felt the need to cross the estuary to collect the praise of a city that is nevertheless sensitive to the same transparency of an ever-changing sky. This should be seen as a great concern for discretion.

Nevertheless, we are delighted today, with Jacques and Jean-Pierre Hamon, to discover him or to meet him again with us until May 11, and to share, through forty oils and four watercolours, his exquisite passion as a painter. Bernard Loriot, whom our colleague Noël Leclercq followed with particular attention, deserves to conquer the people of Le Havre. The one of hearts. For from all his work shines the immense joy he takes in contemplating Honfleur, its quays and Lieutenancy, Sainte-Catherine and its bell tower, Trouville, Deauville or Blonville where he loves to spend his holidays. Loriot never tires of the beauties of the Côte Fleurie, the games of the sea and the sky, the Norman residences leaning against each other, the incessant ballet of the trawlers or the entrance to the port of the pleasure boats. Even his dear Honfleur's new bridge is barely in place when he can't help but stop and paint it, as if he was writing the day-to-day, but always changing, history of the universe that owns it.

A painting of remarkable lightness, a quivering transparency, a correct and yet never supported drawing, a radiant light in the play of roses and blues. Loriot is a painter on the motif. He plants his easel and finishes his canvas under the sun and in the wind. Is that why he succeeds so successfully in giving us the impression of truth, through the silhouettes taken in the movement but also in the real perfume of the unique moment. "The world in which this painter lives is bursting with colours radiating from his paintings," writes René Huyghe. But these colours contain the salt of the breeze just like the cold of the snow when it stops along the old basin, a black hole in the middle of the white docks.

We will also notice its beaches under the sun, where bathers seem to live eternally the carefree time of holidays, its return to the port of boats exhausted by a night of fishing, the solid beauty of its forge in Barneville. But also the Seine in Paris, a very beautiful church of Harfleur and a surprising cliff in Etretat, very personal but of undeniable power. As if Loriot was telling us his fear at the foot of this formidable chalk wall. Finally, a word to highlight four small watercolours of remarkable writing speed: Honfleur, the Lieutenancy but also the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce chapel. Yes, as René Huyghe says, his hand is light. As the sun approaches, this will make us want to cross the estuary in our turn. Loriot sings so well of the beauty of his land that we would like to share it with him. "

"First guest Bernard Loriot whom a crowd of people from Le Havre rediscovered last Saturday during the opening. Last year he had exhibited in Etretat, in October to be exact. He presents here about sixty oils and watercolours (half of them distributed), a few washes and a sanguine. Bernard Loriot has already exhibited alongside major names such as Bernard Buffet, Chapelain-Midi, Michel Ciry and Carzou. This Norman born in Honfleur is undoubtedly one of the best French watercolourists. This "kick" is faithfully reflected in his oils. His work is lively and cheerful in the image of the author. He is a quiet poet to use a trendy formula. He works six hours a day, all year round, which allows him to have a very keen eye on life and nature. He takes a certain distance from the event in order to give it an anecdotal aspect, often tinged with humour. His favourite theme is the sea and the coast of Calvados. He knows how to transcribe the bewitching colours of cloudy skies, shadows and sunny lights, the changing face of the sea. His watercolours are small masterpieces, painted on the spot, without a pencil line. An unstable balance, a tour de force that is only possible through the grace of a perfect mastery of technique and matter. Small or large format, it doesn't matter, they are always light, almost airy, at the limit of reality. Our region is built with sensitivity and he knows how to transmit it to the "reader" with gentleness, finesse and strength, in warm and vaporous tones. Bernard Loriot is reluctant to certain bright colours. Physically he cannot spread them on the canvas, which explains why he abandoned some sliced reds. During his time in Etretat, we wrote that Bernard Loriot painted in a "missionary" spirit. In fact, he is rather a prophet in his country. This is not so common and deserves to be seen. The centrepiece of the exhibition is, in our opinion, "Storm Day in Deauville", an explosion of detail and colour. "

"Visiting the Maïté Aubert gallery where the Loriot exhibition is held is like walking under light skies with pretty breezes, under a spring sky. Everything moves, everything is cheerful, premium and clear.

Beautiful white hair and brightened by the life of the great outdoors, Loriot is a simple man who does not write literature around his painting. He presents himself as a good worker, those craftsmen of yesteryear for whom work was important. The painter works in solitude. In the company of these elements, water, light, the atmosphere and all this infinitely changing spectacle that seems to challenge man to be able to fix its movement.

However, an artist like Loriot, with his forty years of practice, has acquired such a speed of vision and execution that he is able to capture this elusive. As he was painting the pleasure boats in Honfleur, coming out of the harbour, a gust of wind was blowing. A sail goes down. He is asking himself the question. Will he take that, does he have time? But already, the sail has risen. Looking at his work, Loriot realized that he had indeed caught the incident on the flight. The hand runs independently of the intellect, as close as the gaze. It is this speed that makes the charm of Loriot's painting. Speed and virtuosity. He paints as we write. From this calligraphy, which transcribes only the strong points, the clashes of light, eliminating superfluous detail, are born from the canvases, fresh and cheerful watercolours, full of life. It is all well and good to say that Loriot paints with ease. That all these numerous small pochades are produced in series, all this production comes from an experience, from a sum of work accumulated over the years. It also comes from a total concentration. When he starts painting, everything disappears around him except what he has chosen to translate. We can talk to him, he can't hear anything. And he only paints when a pattern has touched him. Loriot needs to feel caught up in a landscape, a sea. And when he attacks his watercolour or canvas, he is like the runner who starts a sprint. A gathering of energy. The nervous expenditure is great and Loriot admits to being exhausted when he finishes his work. These charming little works are not done in the way you might think, while having fun.

In the new exhibition Loriot, from the Maïté Aubert gallery, we will see all the themes that are dear to the Honfleur painter: the beaches and harbour entrances, the views of Honfleur, but also many "snapshots" of horses at the racecourse, on a walk, a few sites in Le Havre, too, a stroll under the Norman skies in the beautiful and fine light of the estuary. "

"Bernard Loriot, an artist from Honfleur, is the typical painter of the Seine Estuary, one of those who knew best how to capture this incomparable sparkling light and put it on his canvases.

With him, the whole flowered coast is revived and fluttered. In its multicoloured festive days, in its splashed beaches, in its wild leaks of pink and blue clouds, and on this moving, sparkling, fascinating sea... he brought to the Malouvier gallery everything that his dazzled and never tired eyes have transcribed into colourful vibrations, from his region, of course, and we will be able to admire some of its luminous beaches, from Trouville / Deauville in particular, in oil, and through some pastel paintings of joyful intensity and beautiful instant watercolours, but also some external views including landscapes of Venice and its canals in surprising lighting effects, without forgetting the sumptuous large formats of the "Veils of Freedom".

It is true that for the pastels, Loriot used those of the brave Gernez, whom his wife entrusted to him when he died. These pastels, of an extraordinary wide range, like the special papers he used, could not be better handled. The paintings he painted especially with these pastels by Gernez, are those of a very great painter, of an uncommon force of expression, in a debauchery of light and imperceptible nuances that gives them a real joie de vivre to look at.

Bernard Loriot, with an impressive list of achievements, who exhibits all over the world, will be in Le Havre today at the Malouvier gallery. Le Havre and Honfleur have almost the same lighting, he will not feel out of place. "

"Loriot can never deny his Honfleur origins, they stick to him with a brush. And it is from this region that he borrows most of his iconography.

Very early on, he wanted to fix this powerful, magical and unexpected element: water. His approach, similar to that of the Flemish who founded in a single space the terrestrial and the celestial, the material and the impalpable, leads him to privilege the marine expanses whether they are Norman or Venetian. Its beaches abound with characters, everyone concerned about their own happiness, its seas are criss-crossed by boats that sway downwind in luminosity adorned with transparency. In this regard, never before have the "veils of freedom" found a better interpreter.

Loriot is a painter who lives in the open sea, walks on the jetties, knows the estuary like the back of his hand, watches for the tides, haunts Venice, which he describes with great skill. His forays into the Ardennes or Versailles are less tasty: no matter how he does it, his ideal love is the marine element and everything around him. He gets his energy from the foaming waves, the fishing returns, the rustling gondolas. Loriot is also a remarkable watercolorist whose works are a pretext for very pure elliptical images. Without a preliminary layout and beautiful reserves of white, it suggests more than it describes and illustrates perfectly the foggy atmospheres of the seaside.

His palette is alive, his touches fast and twirling, these elegant "hiding places". It never lacks the essential rules of construction and harmony. In summary, the good painting underlies a lot of sensitivity. "

"Bernard Loriot, an artist from Honfleur, is the typical painter of the Seine Estuary, one of those who knew best how to capture this incomparable sparkling light and put it on his canvases.

With him, the whole flowered coast is revived and fluttered. In its multicoloured festive days, in its splashed beaches, in its wild leaks of pink and blue clouds, and on this moving, sparkling, fascinating sea... he brought to the Malouvier gallery everything that his dazzled and never tired eyes have transcribed into colourful vibrations, from his region, of course, and we will be able to admire some of its luminous beaches, from Trouville / Deauville in particular, in oil, and through some pastel paintings of joyful intensity and beautiful instant watercolours, but also some external views including landscapes of Venice and its canals in surprising lighting effects, without forgetting the sumptuous large formats of the "Veils of Freedom".

It is true that for the pastels, Loriot used those of the brave Gernez, whom his wife entrusted to him when he died. These pastels, of an extraordinary wide range, like the special papers he used, could not be better handled. The paintings he painted especially with these pastels by Gernez, are those of a very great painter, of an uncommon force of expression, in a debauchery of light and imperceptible nuances that gives them a real joie de vivre to look at.

Bernard Loriot, with an impressive list of achievements, who exhibits all over the world, will be in Le Havre today at the Malouvier gallery. Le Havre and Honfleur have almost the same lighting, he will not feel out of place. "