Paul Collomb (1921-2010), Bouquet of Flowers on a Pedestal, oil on wood

  
Born in Oyonnax in the Ain department in 1921, he began studying drawing in Paris at the age of 17. At the Liberation, he was at La Ruche, a period when he returned to the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts to study in Souverbie’s studio. In 1950, he won the Premier Second Grand Prix de Rome, and the following year the Fénéon Prize. He then spent a year at the Casa Velasquez in Madrid and, in 1953, became a resident at the Maison Descartes in Amsterdam.

His only son, Pierre, was born in 1955. After that came numerous exhibitions in France and around the world, appearances at the major Paris salons (for some as early as 1947), and national and international recognition, marked by guest-of-honor invitations to salons and a prestigious award in Korea, granted for the first time to a Westerner.