Josette Spiaggia

Josette Spiaggia was born in Algiers, on August 6th 1939, when Algeria was a French colony.
In 1950 she is accepted at the age of 11 to join the Beaux-Arts national school and is awarded 1st prize of Drawing. She is also a student of oriental ceramic, modeling and etching workshops.
At the age of 15 she succeeds the competition exam for Ecole Normale of Algiers (promotion 1955-1959) to become a teacher.
She paints on canvas, sculpts, makes ceramics and pottery, takes part into Theater scene design, creates costumes too for the Theatre Festival in Avignon and Pezenas.
Then, from 1959 to 1962, till Algeria independance, she will teach during war in Algerian Bled.
She paints the country where she was born, Algiers, Mediteranean sea, Bled, khaïmas, bedouin shepherds and pastors, but also the 'African Army' (french overseas Army) with its prestigious uniforms, its couriers and its glory.
She's one of the last (possibly the last) specialist of french-african Army. The trilogy warrior-woman-courier is most of her work, with an intransigent documentary and historical rigor.
She's, at first, an outdoor painter. Nostalgic of the former glory of the colonial past, she paints in the West Indies in 1985, in Brazil in 1991, and discovers Thailand and Vietnam in 1998.
She has exhibited painting in New-York (ArtExpo 2003) and every year she takes part into Army Painters exhibition in Hotel des Invalides, Paris

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