October 10, 2026
Alain Godon’s La Danse du Lion: Arras, and My Father’s Dry Cleaner
A new oil on canvas, presented exclusively at Galerie 1Bis in Le Touquet
Arras is the town where I grew up. When Alain Godon’s new painting arrived — the belfry of Arras under a stormy sky, its golden lion swinging from a helicopter above a town in full celebration — I looked at it for a long time, the way one looks at an old family photograph. Then I found my father’s shop in it.
La Danse du Lion is an oil on canvas, 138 × 104 cm framed, on which Alain worked for nearly five months. Seen from the Place des Héros, the Flamboyant Gothic town hall and its 75-metre belfry — destroyed by shellfire in 1914, rebuilt identically between the wars and listed by UNESCO since 2005 — become the stage of a great popular festival. In China, the lion dance chases away evil spirits at New Year. Here, the evil spirits are the dark clouds coiling above the square, and the lucky charm is the lion of Arras, emblem of the town, dancing at the end of its rope.
As Bruegel did with his village festivals, Alain fills the square with the town’s history. The lion holds up the sun of Louis XIV, under whose reign Arras became French for good; Robespierre, born in Arras in 1758, burns a newspaper bearing the Lion King’s effigy; Vidocq was born in the bakery facing the belfry; a banner marks the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Arras. And all around, a joyful, very ch’ti Arras: the town’s giants and the brass band at the head of the procession, l’Ami Bidasse, the fries stand and the fricadelles, and Yvette Horner with her accordion.
Pressing Marco, with a k
Alain also slipped his own childhood into the painting: the École Saint-Joseph, opposite the Palais Saint-Vaast where he discovered Bruegel; the belfry that his uncle, who taught him to paint, sketched so often; the harlequin Great Dane that lived in a fishmonger’s shop facing the belfry. The last lines of the text that accompanies the painting stopped me: the father of one of his closest friends owned the Pressing Marko, where Alain’s father, uncle and grandfather took their suits.
That friend is me. The shop was my father’s dry cleaner — and in those days it was called the Pressing Marco, with a c. Alain painted it with a k, by mistake or by artistic choice; perhaps to name me more directly.
Look closely, between the fireman and the fricadelle van: a few slips of paper marked “Pressing Marko”, the shop where his family and mine already met, across a counter. It is a painting that touches me deeply. Thank you, Alain.
See it in Le Touquet
La Danse du Lion is offered exclusively by Galerie 1Bis in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, which will present it during the All Saints’ school holidays. If you are on the Côte d’Opale this autumn, go and see it, and take your time: as in front of a Bruegel, every corner of the canvas hides a scene. You can also discover the painting in detail and Alain Godon’s work on our website.
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