B. 1929 in Samur, France

Lives and works in Paris

André Brasilier was born into an artistic family in Samur, France in 1929. Possessing a natural inclination for painting at an early age, at twenty he went to Paris to study at the École de Beaux-Arts. In 1952 he received a grant from the Florence Blumenthal Foundation, and in the following year, when he was only 23, won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome, entitling him to study at the Académie de France in Rome.

While Brasilier's works reflect the influences of expressionist artists and Japanese prints, he has retained a personal style of schematized nature and imagery that makes him anomaly in the contemporary zeitgeist. His subdued works often feature themes and motifs of horses, nature, music and women, provocative in their timelessness and emotional subjectivity. Set against the most simplistic and romantic backgrounds, the artist effortlessly transports us into surreal landscapes, lightening the soul with dreamy infusions of figures set in modest hues of colour, shape and form. In an intimate communion with nature, Brasilier draws his inspiration from its language, sounds and colours, reminding us of a natural beauty untouched by daily trivialities and events.

Brasilier had his first retrospective of one hundred artworks from 1950-1980 at the Château de Chenonceau in 1980 and a retrospective exhibition at the Musée Picasso-Château Grimaldi in Antibes, the French Riviera, in 1988. He has since been honoured with major retrospectives both at Russia's renowned State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg in 2005 and at the Museum Haus Ludwig für Kunstausstellungen Saarlois in Germany in 2007.

Oil on Canvas
24 x 14.9 in (60.9 x 37.8 cm)