EXHIBITION NOIR IMPERIAL

It was this IMPERIAL BLACK that made the Gillet family the great industrial dynasty that contributed to the growth of the city of Lyon and its region from 1834 to 1976.
François Gillet was born in Bully, the cradle of the family, a village located between the Monts du Lyonnais and the Beaujolais. After his years as an apprentice in a dye works, he went on to study chemistry at the Ecole de la Martinière in Lyon. The aim of this exhibition is to celebrate the fruitful encounter between scientific creation in the mastery of materials and artistic creation, transcending the latter to project it into the excellence of the crafts of the hand. The ‘Imperial Black’ will be showcased in a number of creative forms: straw marquetry, glass, ceramics, featherwork, rope-making, silk, jewellery, wood, drawing, fashion, wool felt, jewellery, paper and metal art, furniture design, textile art and artistic photography. The exhibition will be accompanied by meetings, discussions and a conference. The story of the Gillet family continues with a proposal written in the inspiring ink ‘Imperial Black’ and embodied by a superb wash by Gao Xingjian, painter and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000.