André Brasilier

Biography of André Brasilier

"I do not seek the truth, I paint as I like with the colors I like."

André Brasilier was born in 1929 in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, to artist parents. His father Jacques Brasilier was close to the Nabis movement while his mother Alice Chaumont was a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London. The young boy spent his childhood in the family manor of Meigné-le-Vicomte and entered the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1948 where his master was Maurice Brianchon.
In 1952, he was awarded the Florence Blumenthal Prize and in 1953 he won the first Grand Prix de Rome for painting, which allowed him to stay at the Villa Medici from 1954 to 1957. From 1958 onwards, exhibitions followed one another and the painter quickly acquired international fame. He was again honored with the Charles-Morellet prize at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in 1961.

The painter's works are full of poetry whose lyricism finds an echo in nature. Three main themes are evident in his creations: horses, femininity and landscapes. His muse is none other than his wife Chantal, whose portrait he likes to paint while she delicately arranges a bouquet of flowers, for example. It is always her that we find in the female portraits. Moreover, the painter, very much in love, could not dissociate his professional life from his family life. Always working in his living quarters, he likes to reserve atmospheres conducive to creation within homes patiently invested and furnished with beautiful things.

The first major retrospective devoted to the painter's works created between 1950 and 1980 was organized at the Château de Chenonceau in 1980. This was followed by an exhibition at the Picasso Museum in Antibes in 1988. In 2005, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg hosted his works before an important retrospective in 2007 at the Haus Ludwig für Kunstausstellungen Saarlois Museum in Germany.
André Brasilier's works are appreciated throughout the world, whether in Europe, the United States or Asia.