artist/ Pierre Coquet

France

Pierre Coquet (1926-2021) was a French painter from Limas (Rhône).

He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Lyon in 1942, where he studied under Antoine Chartres, Henri Vielly and René Chancrin. He was awarded a prize in 1945, and joined a movement called Sanzisme, between figuration and the revival of abstract art, bringing together young people under thirty who wished to follow no particular technique. “Sanzisme” brought together, among others, James Bansac, Roger Bravard, André Chaix, Jean Mélinand, Paul Clair, André Cottavoz, Pierre Doye, Jean Fusaro, Jacques Truphémus, André Lauran, Edouard Mouriquand, Pierre Palué, Paul Philibert-Charrin, Antoine Sanner and Françoise Juvin. The latter became his wife in 1948.
After composing “assemblages of objects” reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi, he turned to Parisian rooftops, still lifes and figures in situation, and in turn moved towards abstraction, while alternating, according to his inspiration, with a return to figuration. A sincere and modest man, turned inward in a climate of profound meditation, he would say: “All painters encounter the same difficulties in trying to express unspeakable emotions with paint. Everything is possible, as long as it is true”.