by Michel Leroux

Son of a farm worker, the eldest of seven children, Gustave Cahoreau was born on August 16, 1929 in Neau (Mayenne - France). At the age of ten months, he is struck by meningitis. From his brief stay in public school, he retains only one memory - of drawing: "I was the champion!" Instead of reading, he prefers "playing hooky" with his brother, Pierre. He is ten years old when World War II begins and he remains traumatized by it.

At 13, he is placed as a servant on farms in the area: a job he will hold for the rest of his life. Gustave will sometimes have "good bosses", but in 1958, this is not the case.

In 1963, his father dies accidentally, "crushed under a hay wagon". It is in this period that Gustave begins to gather stones, roots, strange forms that he sculpts. "When my boss saw that, he hit me…I cried." He is getting on to 40 years and the need to create will never again leave him.

In 1965, the village schoolteacher gives him a book about Art Nègre. It is the beginning of his great production of totem sculptures in scrap wood (pillars, planks, etc.) Later will come the numerous profiles of African women.

In the spring of 1986, Madeleine Lommel and Michel Nedjar (founders of the Aracine Museum) visit the workshop of Alain Lacoste in Changé and discover a sculpture by Gustave. They immediately go to see him and his works enter into the Aracine collection.

Since October 1998, Gustave lives in a retirement home. He takes care of the dishes and of stocking the fireplaces. When weather permits, he "slips off" to the woodpile and sculpts "on my knees". Otherwise, and especially, in the morning alone in his room, he draws with markers and color crayons. "I copy in my own way…" works, advertisements and animals cut out of newspapers and magazines. In the middle of this mass of inventive forms and colors, two themes show up again and again, obsessively. The first is the profile of African women. The second is an enigmatic "man in a hat", always similar, yet never the same. The treatment of the man’s arms and legs is especially strange.

Gustave’s approach and works go beyond a mere pastime for idle retiree. Knowing neither how to write and having difficulties in speaking, his sculptures and drawings are his sole means of communication, of attracting attention.

While he was with his different bosses, Gustave could only obey. With his extreme sensitivity, he has found in his creations the force to disobey by not copying exactly what he sees.

The work of Gustave is a work of REBELLION.