21st-century French painters

Paul Rebeyrolle (3 November 1926 in Eymoutiers – 7 February 2005 in Côte-d'Or) was a French painter.

Pierre-Yves Trémois (8 January 1921 – 16 August 2020) was a French visual artist and sculptor, known for evocative works drawing in equal proportions on surrealism and science illustration, and for combining graphic precision and rigor with flamboyant fantasy. He was born in Paris.
He held seat #2 in the engraving section at the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

René Margotton (1915-2009) was a French painter of the School of Paris, one of the last cubists of the 20th century. He was born in Roanne, France, in 1915, and died in 2009. He is also the father of Bernard Romain

Serge Reggiani (born Sergio Reggiani; 2 May 1922 – 23 July 2004) was an Italian-French actor and singer. He was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy and moved to France with his parents at the age of eight.
After studying acting at the Conservatoire des arts cinématographiques, he was discovered by Jean Cocteau and appeared in the wartime production of Les Parents terribles. He then left Paris to join the French Resistance.
His first feature film was Les portes de la nuit ("Gates of the Night"), released in 1946. He went on to perform in 80 films in total, including Casque d'or, Les Misérables (1958),Tutti a casa, Le Doulos, Il Gattopardo, La terrazza, The Pianist (1998).
Reggiani also triumphed in the theatre in 1959 with his performance in Jean-Paul Sartre's play Les Séquestrés d'Altona. In 1961, Reggiani co-starred with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier in the film Paris Blues, filmed on location in Paris.
In 1965, at the age of 43, he began a second career as a singer, with the help of Simone Signoret and her husband Yves Montand, and later with the assistance of the French singer Barbara. Reggiani became one of the more acclaimed performers of French chanson, and although he was in his 40s, his rugged image made him popular with both younger and older listeners. His best-known songs include Les loups sont entrés dans Paris ("The Wolves Have Entered Paris") and Sarah (La femme qui est dans mon lit) ("The Woman Who Is in My Bed"), the latter written by Georges Moustaki. He regularly sang songs by Boris Vian (Le Déserteur, Arthur où t'as mis le corps, La Java des bombes atomiques). His young fans identified with his left-wing ideals and anti-militarism, most notably during the student revolts in France in 1968. With age, he became acclaimed as being one of the better interpreters of the chanson and for bringing the poems of Rimbaud, Apollinaire, and Prévert to new audiences.
From 1980, when his son died, Reggiani struggled with alcoholism and depression. In 1995, however, he made a comeback to singing, giving a few concerts despite his deteriorated health and personal distress, the last one being held as late as the spring of 2004.
In later life, he became a painter and gave a number of exhibitions of his works.
Serge Reggiani died in Paris of a heart attack at the age of 82. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Raymond Biaussat (21 January 1932 – 13 May 2021) was a French painter.

Jean-Pierre Rives (born 31 December 1952) is a French former rugby union player and visual artist.
"A cult figure in France", according to the BBC, he came to epitomise the team's spirit and "ultra-committed, guts-and-glory style of play".
He won 59 caps for France – 34 of them as captain – and was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame.
After retiring from the sport, Rives concentrated entirely on his art.
He is both a painter and a sculptor, and exhibiting regularly at prominent public venues all over the globe. Rives was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit by the government of France.
He met Russell Yapp in Australia in 1994. They then became best mates from that day on with Russel Yapp wearing his tour tie to every event!

Georges Mathieu (27 January 1921 – 10 June 2012) was a French abstract painter, art theorist, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is considered one of the fathers of European lyrical abstraction, a trend of informalism.

Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages (French: [sulaʒ]; 24 December 1919 – 25 October 2022) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held by leading museums of the world, and there is a museum dedicated to his art in his hometown of Rodez.
Soulages is known as "the painter of black", owing to his interest in the colour "both as a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens a mental field all its own." He saw light as a work material; striations of the black surface of his paintings enable him to reflect light, allowing the black to come out of darkness and into brightness, thus becoming a luminous colour.Soulages produced 104 stained-glass windows for the Romanesque architecture of the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques from 1987 to 1994. He received international awards, and the Louvre in Paris held a retrospective of his works on the occasion of his centenary.