Frédéric Brandon (born in 1943)

And to think he’s been painting for sixty years! And to think that this former graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris could have claimed the glamour of a Prix de Rome – he had climbed into the lodge – if old André Malraux had not decided, in the fury of May 68, to put an end to the most prestigious competition in the art world! But in the large room that serves as his studio, it has to be said that Frédéric Brandon could not care less about the famous Prix de Rome! His happiness and honour, at the moment? To have spent his whole life in front of his easel. To have lived his whole life with his painting! And to have seen around twenty of his works enter some fifteen museums…”But I never wanted to have a career,” he explains. I just tried, day after day, to find a better way of telling my stories, a better way of painting my pictures…”.

We get it: this valiant octogenarian is a storyteller. A figurative painter, lithographer and engraver, he throws onto the canvas the passers-by, objects, landscapes or adventures he encounters… Passers-by, objects, landscapes or adventures that he never fails to translate into multiple colours, with a joy that is contagious. Because that is what this representative of the fine French tradition is: a happy designer, capable of making people happy! An artist of remarkable skill that art historian Jean-Luc Chalumeau likes to rank in the wake of the giants of Figuration narrative. However, this is a restrictive classification: Frédéric Brandon prefers the idea of being free. Free to paint red, green or blue cows. Free to stretch its twilight hours endlessly. Free to make his painting felt by others. As Robert Bonaccorsi, another art critic, wrote: “Frédéric Brandon is a master.”

So good a master that the Centre Cristel Éditeur d’Art in Saint-Malo, to celebrate its tenth anniversary, has decided to devote a fervent retrospective to him in April 2024. A firework. With sixty works!

C. P.