Pierre Daboval (; 3 July 1918 – 11 May 2015) was a French

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

. Daboval studied at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

, the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, 'plucking here and there from the teachings, until I had enough to make a bouquet'.Pierre Daboval: 'Les Phantasmes de Berthe' (Editions Romanet, Paris 1974)

Career

From 1949 to 1951 he lived and worked in Sweden, and then, on his return to France he lived successively in

Auvers-sur-Oise Auvers-sur-Oise (, "Auvers-on-Oise (river), Oise") is a Communes of France, commune in the Departments of France, department of Val-d'Oise, on the northwestern outskirts of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris. I ...

and

Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (; "Saint-Rémy of Provence"; Provençal dialect, Provençal: ''Sant Romieg de Provença'' and ''Sant Roumié de Prouvènço'' ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departments of France, department ...

. The Musée Estrine in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence holds an important collection of his work. He has exhibited in Switzerland, Belgium and France. In 1974 his works were shown at the Galérie Romanet, Paris, as part of an exhibition of erotic drawings ('Un peu d'erotisme'), alongside Hans Bellmer, Bernard Buffet,

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (; 4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brus ...

, Josep Puigmarti and

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

. In 1970 Daboval gave up painting to devote himself to drawing: 'I felt definitively that drawing, which I had always loved, was truly my vehicle: firstly the incisiveness of the pen, then the pencil, with its sensual inflections- these were to become my means of expression for these delicate things.... I feel there are infinite possibilities to exploit, despite the obvious restrictions of black and white. There are further subtleties to discover when entering this universe in which I feel at home and which I discover, little by little, to be under-exploited, perhaps because it still instils fear.' Between 1975 and 1990 Pierre Daboval explored what he called the 'fantastico-érotique'. 'He is able to synthesise the male and the female like no other artist I know of (except Picasso, Masson and Bellmer) but with a totally different personality.' From 1990 he mainly produced portraits, especially self-portraits. From 1998 to his death in May 2015 he lived and worked in Mirepoix, Ariège.

References

21st-century French painters 21st-century French male artists French male painters 1918 births Painters from Paris 2015 deaths {{France-artist-stub