Martial Raysse

Martial Raysse (born in Golfe-Juan in 1936) is a French painter, sculptor and filmmaker, and one of the leading figures of Nouveau Réalisme and European Pop art. The son of a Vallauris ceramics craftsman, he began painting and writing poetry in 1948 and, after secondary school, competed seriously in athletics before committing fully to art. His early works were assemblages of debris and objects displayed in Plexiglas boxes, and around 1959 he began working with plastic, neon and mirrors to reflect the consumer society.

In 1960 he joined the Nouveau Réalisme group. His series of object-paintings presents a sensual yet artificial image of the 1960s woman, with violent colours and, from 1962, neon that highlights mouths and eyes. Between 1963 and 1965 he made the ironic Made in Japan series, recreating famous paintings, above all by Ingres, in the colours of advertising posters. After the events of May 1968 his work became more reflective and critical of commodification, and from 1972 he adopted a markedly different style, with drawing from nature and traditional painting genres.

During the 1970s and 1980s he also worked as a sculptor, first with humble materials and later in bronze, and made films. In Nîmes he created public fountains, including ones dedicated to the city's founders, and in 2001 he made his first stained-glass windows for the Notre-Dame de l'Arche d'Alliance church in Paris. His work is held in public collections in France and Europe, and his career shows how French pop art engaged with traditional painting.