« On 27th and 28th September 2008, Jean-Pierre Couprie created one of his very last paintings, which he entitled “Les remparts de la Reconquista” (“The ramparts of the Reconquista”). It’s a medium format of 92 cm by 72, oil and knife-painted. The evening before starting, according to an unchanging and precise ritual, he had prepared his painter’s palette and his pastes. He had invited his stepbrother Pierre Verny, Gisèle Fiche and me to join him. Jean-Pierre, in some kind of painful and stubborn challenge, wanted to verify that he still had the strength to work.

During the two days spent together in his atelier, attentive and full of emotion, we were present at the birth of a work of art. Fernande, his wife, would come to visit us from time to time. We remained silent, then discussed, and tasted the musics that were directing his movements. The first evening, he was exhausted. He got up with difficulty to paint in the higher parts of the canvas. Each move was painful for him. The second evening, he raised himself on his legs, then slumped back. We joined him and stared at the unfinished piece of work. He finished “Les remparts de la Reconquista” in the following days. Then he explained to us that as long as he could keep painting, life was worth being lived. ».
Jean-Paul Ziegler.

Photographer Pierre Verny©

Summer 2002,
Jean-Pierre Couprie paints Jean-Claude Casadesus.

Two weeks of intense concentration.

It was not Jean-Pierre’s first try. He had already painted Jean-Claude Casadessus
and even met him at the private viewing of one of his exhibitions at the gallery “Schèmes” in Lille, France.

photographer Pierre Verny ©