Pierre Coquet

Still life with red peppers, oil painting by Pierre Coquet

1980-1990

Pierre Coquet is a French painter who was born in Limas near Lyon in 1926. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Lyon in 1942, won a prize in 1945 and joined a movement that wanted to be outside of any artistic schools whose name end with “ism”, (like cubism, impressionism...) between figuration and the renaissance of Abstract Art, bringing together young generations under thirty and eager not to submit to any technique. The “Sanzisme” ("Sans" means without in french) will bring together, among others, painters: James Bansac, Roger Bravard, André Cottavoz, Jean Fusaro, Jacques Truphémus, André Lauran, Edouard Mouriquand, Pierre Palué, Paul Philibert-Charrin and Françoise Juvin. The latter will become his wife in 1948. In 1949, he participated in an exhibition in Geneva, at the Musée de l'Athénée, entitled "Eleven French painters" with Jacques Truphémus and Jean Fusaro. In 1950, he met Alexandre Garbell, who encouraged him and whom he attended his academy on Boulevard de Clichy. After having composed “assemblages of objects” which evoke the memory of Giorgio Morandi, he alternated with other subject such as the rooves of Paris, still lives, harbours. This sincere and modest man, turned inward in a climate of deep meditation, likes to express his feeling that “all painters encounter: express unspeakable emotions with painting. Everything is possible, if it is true ” (Pierre Coquet in "Les Sanzistes ou la renaissance de la modernité” by Antoine Vollerin, Editions Mémoire des Arts, 2002) Pierre died in 2021, in his 95th year.