Jean michel coulon biography
Jean-Michel Coulon
b. , Bordeaux, France
d. , Paris, France
Jean-Michel Coulon was born in Bordeaux in , and at a very early age showed an innate talent for drawing.
As a teenager, his encounter with Picasso was decisive.
In , his younger brother, a member of the French Resistance, was shot by the Gestapo at age Coulon then decided to devote his life to painting.
In he was invited to participate in a group exhibition at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery with Braque, Picasso, Klee, Lanskoy, de Staël, Vieira da Silva, Kandinsky, and from the age of 28, he began to show his work regularly at art fairs, especially at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.
In , Rothko, Soulages, Vieillard, Deyrolle, visited his solo exhibition at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery. The same year, Coulon participated in an exhibition in New York at the Sidney Janis Gallery where fifteen French and fifteen American painters (including Ernst, de Kooning, Pollock, and Tobey) were hung side by side for the first time. In , he participated in a group show at MoMA in New York.
Coulon’s focus on the smallest details, his multiple layers of colors in various thicknesses, and the controlled dimensions of his works suggest a source of inspiration stemming from the great Dutch masters and miniaturists.
In the early ’s, Coulon moved to Brussels where he lived for 30 years.
While there, he exhibited at Vokaer’s Galerie Régence, which also supports Alechinsky, Bram van Velde, Folon, Ubac, Vieira da Silva.
Jean michel coulon biography In he met his future wife, Caroline Garabedian, an American violinist studying at the Paris Conservatory. It was during this period that the two friends both decided to devote themselves to painting. His works are in shades of black, white and grey. In , his younger brother, in the Resistance, is shot by the Gestapo.This period is characterized by very small format paintings with bright and cheerful colors. Some series are striated with a file, revealing the wooden structure.
At the beginning of , the family moved back to Paris, where his work evolved from painting to collages. At 80 years old, he began reworking old canvases from the ’s and ’s, especially some large formats, with pieces of paper painted with gouache, strips of newspaper.
Coulon died in Paris at the age of