Michel Audiard

A sculptor, not a painter, despite the shared name. Michel Audiard has been casting his own bronzes since 1978 and cutting through rusted steel to reveal faces within.

From portraiture to casting

Born in Paris in 1951 and based in Tours, he attended the School of Fine Arts, painted portraits in Montparnasse, and sculpted using various materials. In 1978, he stopped painting to devote himself entirely to sculpture and set up his own lost-wax bronze foundry.

A rare range

His work spans from jewelry weighing a few grams to sculptures weighing several tons, as well as furniture and pens. In the 1990s, his fountain pens—carved from rare materials (mammoth ivory, meteorite, petrified wood)—circulated around the world: over seventy heads of state own an "Audiard."

The Passages

In the 2000s, he began the "Passages" series: rusted steel sheets whose cut-out portraits reveal the invisible. The rust serves as a patina for the iron and as an inexorable link to time. His "Musical Z'Animals" were presented at the Palais Garnier during the winter of 2013.