Gaston Vuillier. In Person

Born in Perpignan on 7 October 1845, Gaston Vuillier was the nonmarital son of a young servant, Anne Pont and Paul Vuillier, blacksmith, who had recently settled with his three brothers in the small valley of the Boulzane. He spent his childhood in peasant houses in the Pyrenees and then became a boarder at Perpignan high school. He was only recognized by his father at the age of 15, after his parents’ marriage. From his youth in the mountains, he would keep the memory of the convulsive landscapes all his life – steep cliffs, dark forests and bright waterfalls – of absolute solitude and terrible tales haunted by the magic of the breishas, witches. These themes then ran through his entire work as a draftsman.