Francois Boucheix
1940

François Boucheix was born in 1940 in an isolated farm in the heart of the Auvergne. At the age of fifteen, following the death of his father, which will mark him deeply, François is forced to leave school to work. Very quickly, he devoted his free time to painting, until late at night, and became fascinated by the surrealist painters.

 

In 1960, when he was conscripted, he took his canvases and brushes with him to Tunisia. After a few months, he was offered to exhibit his work at the Officers' Circle: François Boucheix was 20 years old, it was his first exhibition. Forced to return to France without his paintings, he distributed most of them to his comrades and to the officers with whom he had made friends, keeping only four that would pass through Tunisian customs.

 

In 1964, in response to an advertisement in the newspaper L'Aurore, François Boucheix went to Paris to present his work at the Sèvres Gallery. Bernard Bellaïche was immediately seduced by the originality of his style, and made him sign an exclusive contract for 5 years. Boucheix's first exhibition at the Sèvres Gallery the following year was a success. He is adored by the Parisian elite, establishes a friendly relationship with Salvador Dali, and has a string of exhibitions in France and around the world.

 

François Boucheix is a synesthete: he *hears* color. His canvases, of great poetry, are not only pictorial works: they are also, for those who know how to read them, *musical* works, partitions of colors punctuated by a learned composition and by the recurrence of his fetish elements. His work is marked by classical music.

 

In 1990, on the advice of his friend César, François Boucheix tried his hand at sculpture, and created more than 70 bronze models.

 

In 2007, he opened a personal museum in the spa town of Vichy. Painting being for him a vital function, he continues to paint daily.

 

Boucheix considers himself to be the last of the surrealists, of a "dreamy" surrealism.