YVES LALOY

After an education as an architect, Yves Laloy turned to painting in 1950 and stared to be exhibited in the surrealist galleries in Paris. His work is characterised by a multiple plastic vocabulary through geometric compositions of great pictorial audacity and figurative paintings borrowing themes from Surrealism. André Breton discovered his work and supported the artist with admiration from 1958 until the end of his life. He chose a work by Laloy to illustrate the cover of his famous book Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, which he republished in 1965. The artist was particularly influenced by non-Western art, especially that of the Navajo in America. He let himself be guided by forms that multiplied and that led him on a personal quest that was above all spiritual. Writing, in the form of calembours, is sometimes included in the composition of his paintings and drawings. In 2004, Yves Laloy was the subject of a major monographic exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, France.