Room I

Beginnings

1959 – 1979

38 works

At five, he would shut himself inside a big cardboard box to think. By thirteen he was drawing and painting. Then came the move to Paris, and the Beaux-Arts. The depiction of the body was his one and only pictorial concern.

Milestones · Paris

1966: École nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris
1969: Deuxième prix international de peinture de Vitry
1971: Exposition, Galerie du Croux, Paris
1971: Galerie du Croux, Paris
1974: « Chili, quatre peintres témoins », Bagnolet, Amiens
1975: Commande d’État, Mirambeau, Charente-Maritime
1976: Création du groupe CAIRN, coopérative d’artistes ; Peintures Symétrales
1979: « Miroirs », installation de sculptures de sable, CAIRN, Paris

Meanwhile, in painting

1964: « Mythologies quotidiennes » au musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris : naissance de la Figuration narrative.
1970: Première exposition du groupe Supports/Surfaces à l’ARC, Paris.
1971–1972: Rétrospective Francis Bacon au Grand Palais, Paris.

Self-portrait
1965Image: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  Self-portrait, 1965. Compare it with the 1964 Self-portrait at the Easel, hung in the same room: how has the gaze changed?
Odile, entrance painting for the Beaux-Arts
1966Image: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  Odile, 1966: the painting submitted to enter the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied until 1969.
Self-portrait at the easel
1964Image: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  Self-portrait at the Easel, 1964. The young painter depicts himself at work, in front of his canvas, two years before the Beaux-Arts.
Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass)
1964Image: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1964. A title borrowed from a famous painting by Manet: the young painter measures himself against the masters.
September 1973 in Chile
1973Archival photographLost work, known through photography.Image: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  September 1973 in Chile, an archive photograph. In 1974, he took part in the exhibition “Chile, four painter witnesses” in Bagnolet and Amiens.
Femme de sable (Woman of Sand)
1979 · 160 × 130 cmOil on canvasCollection particulièreImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland Buraud
In the themed tours
- A painter’s beginnings
  Sand Woman, 1979, oil on canvas. The same year, he installed “Mirrors”, sand sculptures, with the artists’ cooperative CAIRN.