Contemporary Artist

Raymond Pitre - Artist

Raymond Pitre is one of the best known Maltese contemporary artists. He was born in 1940 during an air raid. His one and only wish was always the one to paint.

R. Pitre, 1979. 'Screaming Man' [oil].

In general, I think that Pitre’s work is very colourful. Sometimes, his paintings show sadness, frustration, and insecurity but these paintings are also colourful. Most of his work consists of thick brush strokes and also a few splashes in some paintings. I must say that Pitre’s work is very expressive. His childhood was not a very good one. He was born a rebel. School was a great obstacle for him and he often skipped it. Raymond Pitre’s family environment was always tense and never really tranquil. He says that the relationships between his parents were always strained and difficult, often stormy, so that he always felt insecure. I think that therefore, his paintings really express his feelings.

E. Munch, 1893. 'The Scream' [oil and pastel]. National Gallery, Oslow,Norway. 

Because the artist was no one’s student and because he had not attended the school of art or mixed with other artists, Pitre was unknown at the time outside his small circle of friends. However, in 1959 Enrico Scicluna encouraged him to enter a work for a Sacred Art Exhibition which was to be held in the following year. Pitre was unemployed at the time but he invested in a large canvas and a new set of paints and worked on ‘Mystic Return of St Paul’. He was influenced by Salvador Dali’s ‘The Madonna of Port Lligat’. His painting was highly rejected and turned down along with Pitre’s feelings. He was very disappointed. At this time, Pitre started to discover some interest in religion and wanted to become a monk. However, this did not work out and the artist went back to the usual world, unemployed and also with a depression. In the 1960’s he was suffering from agoraphobia which is a fear of being in public places and resulted him in always staying in his studio. It was at this time when he started to work on the series ‘the Scream’. The topic is not a new one. It is quite obvious that the inspiration came from Edvard Munch’s famous painting called ‘The Scream’.

R. Pitre, 1962. 'Scream' [mixed medium].

Pitre did not want to paint the act of a screaming man in a sudden attack of panic, like Munch did. He wanted to paint the scream itself as an expression of his own state of being at that time. As for Munch’s painting the background was important. However, it was unimportant for Pitre’s scream. In fact, for him a busy background was a distraction so he reduced it to a monochrome background. The screaming face in Raymond Pitre’s work is the whole length of the painting. An elongated face which is certainly human but very strange.  As Munch’s painting, the eyes in Pitre’s work are also filled with fear; also the mouth is opened in the act of screaming.

You can see drama in this series of the scream. However, what is different from Edvard Munch’s work is that here, the drama lies in the fact that the scream does not escape into nature such as Munch’s. It remains soundless. It can only be heard in the head and reflected in the features.

R. Pitre, 1964. 'Scream 1' [oil].

References:

F. Salt, 2011. Frank Salt – Fine Art. [online] Available at: <http://www.franksaltfineart.com/Paintings/291/11158> [Accessed 11 April 2014].

K. Wain, 2000. Pitre. Malta, Pitre.