Author Archives: Frédéric Lère

About Frédéric Lère

After Beaux-Arts studies, stone carving and comics in France, Frédéric Lère arrived in New York in 1984 to specialize in mural painting. In Spring 2010, he moved to a new studio in the Fashion District in Manhattan to work on oil paintings or 3D cutouts based on watercolors sketched during his trips in the US or abroad or in the fancy of his circus memories.

La Belle Pauline

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Message 3 in a Bottle
New York, NY
Three stages to reach the bottom of that bottle. It opens first on the Magician on the centre right (my Grand Father) and his assistants (among them twice my Grand Mother)…
Grand-Père Lère and his Assistants, "La Belle Pauline" repeated twice

Grand-Père Lère and his Assistant, “La Belle Pauline” repeated twice

She was nicknamed “La Belle Pauline” by her artist fans in Montmartre.
More pictures in my website, page Messages in A Bottle, in the FKL chapter. Inside shutters reveal lots of rabbits and again “La Belle Pauline” in red. Wait, she disappears, and 7 doves fly away!

La Bicyclette

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Bicycle Utopia
Jeanne Hilary’s Blog

Jeanne was intrigued by this fresco hanging in my living-room. She loves riding, speaking  and blogging about bikes. And she is fascinated by Circus.

Fresco by Frédéric Lère, 1998

Fresco by Frédéric Lère, 1998

We met at the Bard Graduate Center, 38 W 86th St  New York, NY 10024, to visit an exhibition about Circus in New York and again in my studio. The result is a great article in her blog, “A Yankee Circus on Mars”

Mummy

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Uncle Mario’s
New York Hell’s Kitchen

Rescued on April 13, 2013, at the corner of 42nd Street and 9th Avenue a mannequin from Monetti’s pizza.

pizza-man-01

Mummified in my studio, its history as well as Hell’s Kitchen’s recorded in hieroglyphic style on canvas strips. Set on a golden base and donated on May 17, 2013 to Uncle Mario’s pizzeria, at 739 9th Avenue, on the occasion of the “Artists in the Kitchen” studio tours.

pizza-man-10Witness to the transformation of Hell’s Kitchen, the mummified pizza mannequin now stands guard in front of the pyramids of Worldwide Plaza.
More about the mummy in NYscapes, the Pizza Mannequin page.

Tiger in a Bottle

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Cirque d’Hiver
Paris, France

Bouglione in Cirque d'Hiver, photo by Capucine Lance

The Human Tigers in Cirque d’Hiver, photo by Capucine Lance

Spring is in the air. The tiger made it finally to a Bouglione’s show  in Cirque d’Hiver. During intermission, the bottle was handed over to the tiger tamer Redi Montico. He liked the idea of a travelling gift and was wondering how long he could keep it… The answer is only up to Redi Montico!
With the hope to have very soon news of the Human Tigers. May-be from Italy?

More about the Human Tigers in Blog and in The FREEvolous King Lère Show
More about Message in a Bottle

Post by Clémentine L. :

Finally! After spending two months on the shelfs of Clémentine’s parisian apartment, the bottle’s been released! (in the meantime, it’s been particularly appreciated by myself and my friends, so, it was a good cause for me to retain it for so long!) As Fred’s grand father was an aerialist, and that his art is all about circus, he asked me to release the bottle at the Cirque Bouglione. I chose to give the bottle away to the tigre tamer of the Circus, Redi Montico. He now has to perpetuate the trip of this piece of art!

Messages in a bottle

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Hides
Studio 1210, New York

 

Bengali, the Inhuman Tiger

Bengali, the Inhuman Tiger and Has Been, the Polar Bear hanging out on the walls of studio 1210.

Is winter too hard on traveling circuses?
Are “Has Been”, the Polar Bear, and “Bengali”, The Inhuman Tiger, entered a stage of prolongated hibernation? Since they do not show any sign of life, I am afraid that we are finding out with Simon Fraser that Art cannot float for long on our sea of humanity…

La Bergamote

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Bistro-Café in Manhattan
New York

Pâtisserie La Bergamote, 515 West 52nd street

Pâtisserie La Bergamote, 515 West 52nd Street

The mural is 17 feet wide and 8 feet high. Translation of the caption at base of mural: “Delivery of the first bergamot from Calabria, passing by Place Stanislas in Nancy, April first of year 1850”. Eight horses pull a carriage with two conductors and twelve pâtissières. The last of the twelve pastry chefs holds between her fingers the first bergamot candy,  invented by Nancy confectioners in 1850 from the bergamot fruit imported from Calabria. A big mural for a small candy!

Sketch in front of mural, oil on canvas, 24" x 52"

Sketch in front of mural, oil on canvas, 24″ x 52″

 

Fort Matanzas

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St. Augustine
Florida

Fort Matanzas on the Matanzas inlet

Fort Matanzas

I discovered that fort on Route A1A, on my way from Miami Beach to New York, on January 01, 2013. Built on the Matanzas River between 1740 and 1742 by the Spanish, it defended the south approach of St Augustine. Only 5 minutes to paint that watercolor. A Rotring “Artpen” came very handy to rush in sunset and closing time by the National Park Service.

Message 2 in a bottle

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Free The Human Tigers !
Studio 1210, New York

Free the Human Tigers!

Free the Human Tigers !

December 21, 2012, 9:30 AM
After a first message in a bottle, launched at the Cup Cake Café in Manhattan, a second bottle has been released from my studio and sent directly to Clémentine L. She lives in Paris, just in front of the Cirque d’Hiver. I hope she could entrust this Message 2 in a bottle into the hands of the Bouglione family, who still participates in the life of the Cirque d’Hiver. I would like for the bottle to go from circus to circus: my passion for circus started with the stories of my grand-father, a trapeze artist at the beginning of the 20th century, coincidently in the Cirque Bouglione…

Corseul
Brittany, France
December 29, 2012. 2:30 pm

 

Free the Human Tigers on the Roman Forum of Corseul, Brittany

Free the Human Tigers on the Roman Forum of Corseul, Brittany

On its way to Paris, “The FREEvolous King Lère Show” landed in the forum of Corseul, Brittany. Wikipedia says: “(…) Corseul was called Fanum Martis (“Temple of Mars”) in Latin and was the capital of the Gallo-Roman province of Coriosolites. It was founded in 10 BC (…)” Not a roman arena, but a roman forum will do for a first appearance the FKL show on the old continent. It is still in the hands of Clémentine L.

More about Free The Human Tigers ! at the end of the FKL Show page.

Message in a bottle

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Cup Cake Café
New York

The FREEvolous King Lère Show has been put in a bottle and thrown into the web, at 10.25 in the morning of Wednesday December 05, 2012.

Anyone can take it for free, but has to give it away, for free, into the hands and the place of his or her own choice. Just one requirement: its new keeper has to snap a picture of it in its new temporary home and post it to this blog with comments about its new location.

I chose the Cup Cake Café as its launching pad for its warmth, its coffee and the diversity of Mike’s guests: mix of unknown travelers from nearby Port Authority Bus station with local artists and writers, people who for sure would take good care in passing on this Message in a Bottle…

Bon voyage!

More about the FREEvolous King Lère Show in its bottle at the end of the FKL Show page.

A first picture arrived at noon, from behind the counter, shot by Mike himself…

It slowly drifted to the marble slab, still shot by Mike…

At 1.00 pm, the Freevolous was still spotted on the slab by Murray Weinstock.

December 10, 2012, 4:00 pm, at Cup Cake Café.
My friend Ellie took the FREEvolous with her. She would like to give it away in Denver, Colorado…

Denver
Colorado

December 17, 2012, 8.31 pm,

Ellie Karanauskas sent me these pictures with her comment:

“I was thrilled to take the bottle to Denver, to the Botanic Gardens, where Denver was celebrating the “Blossoms of Light” holiday festival, and I was celebrating the retirement of a dear friend, and colleague, Eve.

The air was mild, the gardens magical, and it seemed the perfect place and time to toss the bottle into the river of humanity. I tossed it towards Eve, with good wishes for her new life to come. Let’s see where the bottle ends up!

Thanks, Frédéric!
Ellie K.”

Museum of Dominican Man

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Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic

I played Hide and Seek with hurricane Sandy, arriving in Santo Domingo one day after Sandy hit the island and back in Manhattan one week later. I discovered that the 2 islands share, thanks to Sandy, the same fragility. The watercolor was painted on Halloween Day in the Museum of the Dominican Man. Carnival masks and costumes to fight the Kingdom of Evil!