James Coignard, painter, ceramist, sculptor and engraver, was born in 1925 in Tours.
After a brief career in government, he discovered at the age of 23 years the landscape of the French Riviera. That's when he decided to follow the courses of the School of Decorative Arts in Nice. Will forsake 4 years later the administration to devote himself exclusively to his artistic career.
It's his meeting with Paul Hervieu in 1950 that will be decisive. Coignard exhibited for the first time in Beaulieu-sur-Mer and it was through Paul Hervieu he meets Braque, Matisse and Chagall.
In 1952, he moved to Paris and installed his ceramics workshop. He began exhibiting in the Scandinavian countries. He married Mireille Poupart; he returned to Beaulieu-sur-Mer in 1956, where he set up his studio. At that time it found Atlan, Christine Boumeester, Henri Goetz, Max Papart ...
In 1958 Coignard stop practicing ceramics to devote himself to painting. In the 1960s, his career took an international dimension, particularly in the US and Sweden. He traveled around the world and try new techniques such as tapestry and glass sculpture.
His collaboration with the gallery Hervieu it will gain visibility in the art world and abroad, especially in Scandinavian countries. James Coignard at the beginning of his career will be appointed by critics as belonging to the School of Paris. Very soon his paintings and ceramics and it will stand out in alone.
In the early 60s he began working glass but a turning point in his technique is taken in 1968 when his friend Henri Goetz discovers a new etching process with carborundum. The engraving becomes central in his Work. His career at the same time an international dimension. He travels a lot, particularly in Sweden and the United - States where he lived a few years.
In the late 1960s, the artist will especially exploit the opportunities offered by the carborundum etching. This is an unclassifiable, he touches, experimenting, trying, and trying tirelessly supports, forms and techniques that allow him to develop his artistic research. Early in his career, Coignard is likened to the realists of the School of Paris. Very quickly, it becomes difficult to stop working in one of the art movements of the second half of the twentieth century; but, in view of his work, it is clear that James Coignard fully belongs to its time.
In 1978 James Coignard will start a long collaboration with the engraving workshop Pasnic it will help to create. In the 80s, living between Paris and the French Riviera, it is interested in artists' books and publishing issues. It now sets worldwide and is recognized as one of the greatest painters printmakers of his time.
It is through painting and drawing that James Coignard will develop his aesthetic thought.
Marcelin Pleynet in James Coignard and memory signes2, writes: "the work of James Coignard has all the characteristics of a work belonging to the area of modern art [...] the work of James Coignard seems curiously silent as soon as we work to compare, to think, to understand the basis of such and such conventional data. "This is its very essence.
Until his death in 2008 James Coignard will continue to work in both painting and sculpture and engraving, producing many and leaving behind an immense work.
