Figurative painting is not, like some people used to say, « a handmade photograph »,but rather the « mirror of the soul », the materialization of one’s feelings, the projection in two dimensions of one’s inner thoughts and buried memories. Therefore, I would like to give the reader a few biographical détails wich might be useful in understanding my artwork.

I was born in 1947 in Alexandria, Egypt. My father, Joseph, although descended from a family of antique dealers, was a chief accountant at the Shell Company. Then, later, in Paris, he made a career at UNESCO. My mother, Josephine, was Italian and hence passionately interested in the opera. She worked as a teacher for several years, but stopped to devote all of her time to her offspring. My older sister, Marie-Lise has been in love with books and studying since she was a young girl and she is still learning! I was never interested in academic pursuits. Fortunately for me, my mother always looked favorably on my desire to embrace an artistic career.

Since I was lazy with the spoken language, I took refuge in graphic expression. I covered any surface at hand in an obsessed way. Everywhere I went, my reputation precedes me. Pencils and sheets of paper were prepared for me, which I would rush to fill with drawings. I soon discovered the profitable side of this compulsive activity. I began with barter, exchanging a drawing for marbles, comics, or tins soldiers; then I quickened the pace, participating in drawing competitions advertised in magazines. In this way, I set up my personal household, winning cameras, record players, radios and checks of various amounts.

The “dolce vita” in the sun and at the seaside was rudely interrupted in 1956 when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. We were expelled, and I had to abandon my childhood, along with my dearest possessions. I was forced to leave behind several boxes full of drawings and all my toys “ Made in Japan”. I would find them again in 1996, represented in a series of paintings, as if the time had come for me to exorcise the ghosts of the past.

During that period of eviction, the apartments of our close friends and relatives were being emptied one after another. The rooms seemed larger; the corridors were cluttered with suitcases. Marks left on the walls told the stories of the paintings and the furniture that were once there. Sometimes an orphaned piano or a bulky closet was left in the back of an empty room.

On the quay, waiting for our departure, I was sitting on a trunk. Petrified by the crowds and surrounding commotion, I contemplated the huge ship riddled with portholes and streaked with rust and salt from sea spray.

Although seeing the coast of one’s native land getting farther and farther away is always heartbreaking, to be going to Paris was a dream. I had a personal reverence for that city; its streets, its gardens, its bridges fascinated me. But I was soon disillusioned. Due to the housing shortage, my father, who had gone on ahead a few months before, welcomed his family to a small old flat, in a quarter cluttered with rundown shops. At that time, I didn’t know that the darks corridors, wobbly stairs, flaking walls, and minuscule kitchens would be future subjects of my paintings. Luckily, our living conditions gradually improved.

During the holidays, besides fun fairs and other amusements, I discovered the pleasure of going to the movies several times a day. In the beginning, I wanted to watch the favorite themes from my childhood: westerns, musicals, and war movies. Eventually though, my taste became more refined. I began to go frequently to the “Art & Essai” cinemas and the film library. My interest in Cubism found an echo in the German expressionist films of the 1920s.

The scenery and settings comprised of oblique lines, alternative perspectives, and contrasted lightings was to inspired a series of paintings that became a determining factor in the future of my work. I was no longer happy with just copying Braque or Picasso; I needed to have my own personal style.

My schooling started at the Lycée Henri IV, and I continued my studies in an uninspired way. With my artistic future in mind, everything else seemed dull and boring. I was more motivated by my evening drawing classes of nude models than my homework. I attended lessons in two drawing studios, Place des Vosges and Boulevard Montparnasse, where I was steeped in a world of artistic individuals of various ages and coming from different backgrounds a world where I could breathe, at last!

After a “prepa” year at the Académie Charpentier, I opted for classes in ceramics, where I considered the plastic expression closest to painting. At that time, I didn’t really believe that I could make a living with my art.
When I left the Métiers d’Art School, I was not very enthusiastic about the work available in the earthenware and pottery workshops in Vallauris. I found various small decoration jobs: frescoes for particular houses, shops windows, television studios, filmsettings, etc. each day, as soon as possible, I went back to my studio in Boulogne-Billancourt, where I worked desperately hard at painting, but at that time I found my painting eclectic and unsatisfactory.

Considering that the genuine contemporary art at that time was the cinema, the last born and synthesis of all of the arts, I decided to acquire some knowledge of the field and participated in making a movie under the auspices of the famous Vincennes University.

The effect was the opposite of what I expected. I came to understand that, in a film, what I preferred was the cinematic image and not its conception. Nonetheless, from then on, my work was influenced more by Welles or Hitchcock rather than by Kandinsky or Duchamp. My paintings acquired titles that were voice-off subtitles; the subject matter had the ingredients of the film image: close-ups, panoramas, blurred distance and sharp lighting – these became my pictorial vocabulary.

In the early seventies, i twas trendy to join various artist groups, so I did. There were: the “Front des Artistes Plasticiens”, with whom we created a serigraphy worshop; the “Front Culturel”, initiated by Les Cahiers du Cinéma; the “Committee for the Denunciation of CAVAR”, which permitted artists’ to receive benefits from the Social Security system; the “Salon de la Jeune Peinture”, of which I was the General Secretary from 1976 to 1978; the “Collectif  Antifasciste”, a collection of ideological painters, and there were many others.

Meanwhile, I came to work with Matieu in Cachan, where Julio Le Parc gave me a studio within his immense space.This daily interaction with experienced artists was particularly beneficial to me. The environment of hard work prevailed but was broken-up by visits of artistic personalities, festive lunches, and volleyball matches. These ideal creative conditions soon helped me give shape to my personal artistic vision.

Starting with the visual opposition of blurred/sharp images obtained by using a lens with a large depth of field, I did research into finding a subject that would give me a comparable effect in painting. After a few attempts, the window seemed to me to be the ideal choice. I contrasted the dark and sharp window shutters in the foreground with the far off light and blurry landscape. I began seeking any element that would materialize the windowpane, which worked as a barrier between those two planes, such as drops of water, or cracks or marks of any sort. At this moment, I definitively chose the urban space as the setting for my work.

In August 1978, I showed my latest paintings to Jean- Pierre Lavignes, who hung them in his gallery, situated on the Ile-Saint-Louis. When they were well received by the public, he organized my first personal exhibition in March 1979-an important step had been accomplished. I expanded the window theme with cafés, staircases, interiors…any place which emphasized the visual oppositions previously discussed. Then, as if I had changed places by forward tracking, I focused on exteriors, generally at night, or dusk. A deep friendship, even if rather tumultuous at times, was to take Jean Pierre and me to Italy, to the Bologna Fair. Other exhibitions soon followed. However, our fiery temperaments finally got the better of our friendly relations.

Sometime later, I joined the Galerie du Centre. Alain Matarasso, the gallery’s owner and I shared the same ambition: exhibit in the United States. Alain’s experience quickly helped us become represented in art fairs and galleries on the other side of Atlantic.

In this state of grace, good things are never isolated. First, I moved into a new studio in Montmartre and then as an apotheosis, in January 1984, I met Margot, a young and talented painter, whom I married one year later. From the very beginning of our relationship, I enriched my repertoire with new discoveries. I painted my muse from the back, wandering in the streets, the gardens, the train stations, on the bridges, as if we were in an urban road-movie.
In December 1986, we created our best work of art: our son, Victor! He was born at about nine o’clock in the morning. That winter day the sky was clear with a pinkish- orange color. I had just undertaken a series of paintings representing roofs cutting across stormy skies. Suddenly, the skies appeared clearer, colored pinkish-orange as if by enchantment.

Thanks to the several trips I’ve enjoyed in the United States, I’ve accumulated many rich experiences in my artistic career. I exhibited successively in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, Chicago, and of course, New York, at the Magna Gallery owned by Rasjad Hopkins.

The Magna Gallery was situated at the magic corner of Prince and West Broadway in Soho. Unfortunately, the first Gulf War, which caused an economic crisis and subsequent collapse of the art market, forced this gallery to close. The only art gallery which seemed unaffected by this disaster was the “Entrée des Artistes” Gallery in Barbizon. They were still successfully showing my work but in that world turmoil, the feeling of insecurity that I thought I had lost forever came back to me.

The tensions, illustrated by the warships sailing towards the Gulf, reminded me of my own exodus from Egypt. The result was a series on boats that I showed in Miami at the Commenoz Gallery.

Amidst this disastrous time for art, I received a call from San Francisco that was going to change my life. It was from Rowland Weinstein, who against all odds was eager to launch his new gallery. Surprised by this attitude, I took the first plane to San Francisco. I had a few paintings in my luggage and I couldn’t wait to meet this intriguing individual. Rowland was a young man of about thirty and full of energy. I knew at once that nothing would stop him. We met in the tow small rooms of a flat he shared with his wife, Julie. His fax belonged to the neighborhood hotel; his gallery space was in full renovation, even though it was scheduled to open only two days later! Amazingly, on opening day everything was ready. My paintings were hanging from the picture rails, and the buffet and refreshments were in place! The adventure continues. Today, Rowland is at the head of his own “Art Empire”.

In 1996, Franklin Bowles, a tycoon who owned galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, had the director of his New York gallery call me. He had just taken over the magic space at the corner of West Broadway and Prince Street. I could not let such a stroke of luck go by. Since our first encounter, Franklin and I have gotten along perfectly. We are from the same generation and have lived in both Europe and the States. We have experienced the history of contemporary art along with its related counterculture movements. Now we have been working together for ten years, and it’s only the beginning. Today, The Franklin Bowles Galleries has moved a few meters down on West Broadway into an even more beautiful and successful gallery space!

When I began painting, my greatest desire was to show my work to others, if only to hang one painting in some public place. When that was done, my desire grew to have a personal exhibition. Then I had the dream of a catalog, then of an exhibition in the United States. Now, the latest important milestone has been reached: reading my own monograph.

I am, therefore, eager to thank the gallery owners who have also become my friends –Frank and Rowland- for having helped me fulfill this whish.