In the summer of 2005, GRATALOUP presented an important solo exhibition entitled Recent Paintings at La Maroquinerie in Nantua, his birthplace. The event held a special significance in the artist’s career, as it was the first major solo exhibition ever organized in the town where he was born in 1935. Following exhibitions at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris and the Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon, and only a few months before his exhibition in Leverkusen, Germany, GRATALOUP chose to present in the Haut-Bugey region a group of recent works deeply rooted in his personal history and in the landscapes that had shaped his imagination.

Born in Nantua but forced to leave the region during childhood because of the war, the artist never lost his connection to the Bugey. In the text written for the exhibition, he describes the region as “the land of my family and of my pictorial subconscious,” explaining that his series devoted to mountains, fir forests, water, and the lake all originate from these formative landscapes.

The exhibition brought together several major paintings from this period, centered around a key work entitled Around the Lake (Autour du lac). Through this painting and the related series, GRATALOUP revisited the landscape of Nantua and its lake, not as a geographical depiction but as a territory of memory. Mountains, water, reflections, and light become the elements of a pictorial language in which reality gradually transforms into inner vision. The landscapes of the Haut-Bugey are transfigured through color and matter, acquiring a symbolic and universal dimension.

The exhibition also occupies a unique place in the artist’s history because it coincided with the public launch of an ambitious project for a Grataloup Foundation in Nantua. The invitation brochure featured an early architectural sketch of the future building designed by Denis Sloan, a renowned architect and close friend of the artist. Planned for a site overlooking the lake, the project was intended to house a major donation by GRATALOUP and to establish a new cultural center for the region.

An exceptional support committee was assembled around the initiative, bringing together prominent figures from the worlds of culture, media, and business. Among them were Jacques Rigaud, Michel Tournier, Jacques Julliard, Paul Lombard, and several leading economic and institutional figures committed to the cultural development of the region.

In the texts published on this occasion, supporters emphasized the importance of creating in Nantua a place dedicated to a living artist whose work was already recognized nationally and internationally. They saw in the project an opportunity to preserve within the collective memory the unique vision of a creator who remained deeply attached to his native territory.

Although the foundation project was ultimately never realized, the 2005 exhibition remains a major testimony to that collective ambition. It marked the first large-scale presentation of GRATALOUP’s work in his hometown and brought together paintings directly inspired by the lake, the mountains, and the landscapes of the Haut-Bugey. Today, Recent Paintings stands as an important milestone in the artist’s career, at the intersection of creation, memory, and transmission