Société des poètes Français

The Painter Verena von Lichtenberg and her Art Exhibition in Paris

Marie-Thérèse Lacombe adjointe au Maire Paris 6ème, Joël Loison Maire de Vélizy-Villacoublay, Verena von Lichtenberg Painter and Monique Loison Adjointe au Maire de Velizy-Villacoublay

Jean-Pierre Pluyaud Vice Président de la Communauté d'agglomération de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Jean-Charles Dorge Président de la Société des Poètes Français, Verena von Lichtenberg Painter, Michel Benard de la Société des Poètes Français Lauréat de l’Académie française et Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts & des Lettres, Kathy-Thérèse, Marie-Thérèse Lacombe adjointe au Maire Paris 6ème and Jacques-François Dussottier de la Société des Poètes Français

The Painter Verena von Lichtenberg and the Pianiste Eric Heidsieck

Prof. Dr. Patricia Commun de Genève La Spécialiste de l'Histoire des idées politique allemande, de la Civilisation économie et de la Civilisation des institutions et des sociétés de civilisation germaniques, the Painter Verena von Lichtenberg and Michel Bénard de la de la Société des Poètes Français Lauréat de l’Académie française et Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts & des Lettres

Jean-Pierre Pluyaud Vice Président de la Communauté d'agglomération de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Verena von Lichtenberg Painter

Marie-Thérèse Lacombe adjointe au Maire Paris 6ème and Verena von Lichtenberg Painter

Alain Béral Painter and Verena von Lichtenberg Painter

L'avocat Ingrid  Boetsch du cabinet  Botsch et partners in Paris and the Painter Verena von Lichtenberg

Jean-Pierre Pluyaud Vice Président de la Communauté d'agglomération de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, l'Artiste Peintre Alain Béral and the Calligraphe Ning-Jing

Jean-Pierre Pluyaud Vice Président de la Communauté d'agglomération de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, l'Artiste Peintre Verena von Lichtenberg, Jean-Charles Dorge Président de la Société des Poètes Français and Ning-Jing Calligraphe

Exhibition – Société des Poètes Français
“Espace culturel Mompezat”
From 7 to 20 January 2017

To all, hello and welcome to our cultural space and headquarters of the Société des Poètes Français. Thank you for coming in large numbers, some from very far away, and for braving the winter weather to discover or rediscover the works of Verena von Lichtenberg, works marked by simplicity, purity of line and atmospheric clarity.

Here we enter Verena’s universe, which evolves in a space that becomes floating, filled with an essential peace, a true mirror of serenity where the images unfold and double through reflections and striking luminous effects.

Verena von Lichtenberg is, among others, a member of the Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters.

She regularly exhibits internationally in museums and galleries in Moscow, Nagoya, Tokyo, Bruges, Paris, Saulieu at the Musée Pompon, Miami, and many others.

She presents herself to us through a very interesting journey, marked by obstacles, due to parents who often do not envision an artistic career for their children. “Come on, that’s not serious! Real professions for drifters!” And yet the ground was favourable, as her father was a renowned architect.

She therefore pursued serious engineering studies in the German tradition—enough to guarantee credibility.

She later naturally returned to architecture and, by extension, to graphic art.

Verena von Lichtenberg has a strong working capacity and is drawn to modern art, German Expressionists, Der Blaue Reiter, Bauhaus, Otto Wagner, and especially Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a major artist who anticipated ecological and natural architecture long before it became fashionable.

Her creative work constantly oscillated between architecture and pictorial expression—structured yet increasingly stripped down—also passing through graphic design.

But the true culmination remains her pictorial expression.

At this point, I would like to emphasize that those who do not know Verena von Lichtenberg’s work and discover today her almost monochrome and refined pieces may be surprised, as she was once a bold colourist in the spirit of the Fauves and of certain forms of Art Brut.

Indeed, Verena von Lichtenberg created seascapes, various scenes, and highly colourful landscapes, already strongly structured and composed, in a style reminiscent of Nicolas de Staël.

All this demonstrates, if proof were needed, the strong energy and determined personality of our friend.

Gradually, she felt the need to go further, to leave figurative constraints behind, and to escape the framework of a sanitized and formatted contemporary society.

Verena von Lichtenberg needed a breath of freedom, a breath of new poetry.

Very large formats do not intimidate her; her spacious studio allows it. Here she expresses herself with vitality, strength and momentum. Her natural creative instinct is amplified by gesture.

Of course, you will not see large formats here, as it would have limited the presentation to only three or four works.

Her art gradually transforms, becomes more refined and monochrome.

Thus we encounter the mysterious and poetic, almost divine play of the Northern Lights, and symbolic ideograms reminiscent of a cathedral.

But this is not enough—the essential is still missing—and this refinement leads her toward a kind of Asian-inspired thought or expression, close to Zen.

The aim is to reach the essential naturally, leaving only the subtle substance visible.

Everything then transforms, approaching transcendence; it becomes a note of light containing the universe, a pearl of eternity balanced over infinite emptiness.

In her own way, with her brushes, alone in her large unheated studio facing a castle, she seeks to court the ineffable, to question fleeting mirages, to sculpt the tremors of the wind.

Here I will leave you to engage with the works of Verena von Lichtenberg, where black becomes a colour of hope and grey becomes a source of life.

All that remains is to let your dreams wander through this timeless journey.

Michel Bénard
Laureate of the French Academy
Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters