René Baumer

1906-1982

René Baumer was born on October 10, 1906 in Mulatière, France.  In 1921 he received his “certificate d’étude” and began as an apprentice lithographer in 1922 at Arnaud in Villeurbanne. 

From 1928 until 1931 Baumer worked as an engraver draughtsman in Lyon while continuing to enhance his drawing skills.  He enrolled at l’École des Beaux Arts in Lyon until 1937.  During this period his tastes for music and literature also grew. 

Baumer moved to Strasbourg in 1937 and in 1938 enrolled at l’École Municipale d’Arts Decoratif.  He encountered many difficulties during this period cumulating in an attempted suicide. 

In September of 1939 he moved to Paris where he continued to study drawing under the influence of Germanic mythology.  After the war in 1940 Baumer moved to Vaulx en Velin in the suburbs of Lyon with his parents.  He ventured into underground political journalism and publication influenced by his uncle Rémy Roure. 

In 1942 Baumer organized an exhibition of paintings and sculpture under the pseudonym “Rene Ramage” at the Gallery Décoration in Lyon. 

On April 4,1944 Baumer, his father and aunt were captured by the Gestapo and taken to Montluc, then Compiegne and finally to the Neuengamme concentration camp.  Baumer drew portraits of his fellow inmates and was commissioned by German officials to recreate harsh camp scenes and hangings; the Musée d’Ord and the Hôtel National collect these drawings.  In April of 1945 prisoners were redirected to the Bergen Belsen extermination camp, later released in June 1945 by the British.  Baumer continued to sketch and draw horrific scenes and images of prisoner corpses.

Baumer returned to France in 1945 to live with his uncle Rémy Roure and began again to engage in journalistic activities.  He attended the Julian Academy worked as a substitute teacher in various universities.  Baumer gained his professorship in 1947 and ran a workshop on the main street of Montparnasse.

In the years that followed he developed an expressionistic style and maintained his studio.  His influences ranged from architecture and travel to religion. 

René Baumer died in 1982 of cancer in Vaulx en Vilan where he had spent so many years with his family. 

Referenced from www.renebaumer.free.fr compiled by Daniel Contamin