Biography

Born the 1^st of May 1916 in Hanoï, Indochina (Vietnam) where he lived until 1935.

All his life he was greatly influenced  by the country of his youth, to such a point that he always felt as a foreigner in France… His painter’s vision was greatly influenced by these Indochinese years.

He settled in Paris in 1936, and became a student at the Fine Arts School (until 1938 in the Roger studio).

During the Second World War, he was mobilized,  suffered the German occupation of Paris, and witnessed, a sketch pad in hand, the Liberation of the City.

He  married in 1946 to Micheline, daughter of a pioneer of French cartoons, Robert Collard, known by the name of Lortac.

In 1948 he won the ”Premier grand Prix de Rome de Gravure” for copper line-engraving: an award that allowed him to spend four profitable years in Italy.

Upon his return to France, he taught drawing, painting and engraving, wood-cutting (from 1952 to 1983), in different schools, among which in the Rennes Fine Arts School (1952), in the Ville de Paris studio and in the Polytechnic School.

Many French engravers were his students, including some who became famous such as Mohlitz, Doaré, Houtin, Desmazières, Séguy.

He created all sorts of works, including postage stamps, illustrations for books and magazines, settings and costumes for theatre (“King Lear”, directed by Charles Dullin), medals, repoussé , murals and even stained-glass windows and mosaics (Tréhorenteuc Church in Morbihan).

At the same time, he was creating a very personal works, a combination of sharp observation, almost documentary, and unrestrained fantasy :  his compositions are inspired in Mythology as in science-fiction.

His work was shown in many exhibitions (from 1944 to 2010), and  several Museums purchased his works (Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Musée de la Marine, Musée de la Poste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des estampes, Metropolitan Museum de New York, section engraving…).

He settled in Sens where died in 1988, at the age of 72.