2. Artists & stock
3. Julius Baltazar
4. Biography

Notes of biography

The painter, engraver and lithographer Julius Baltazar, whose real name is Hervé Lambion, is born in Paris in 1949. As a teenager, he paints his first watercolors and gouaches which already show his preference for the paper. From the 60s, he prefers to school visiting galleries of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, his family neighborhood, such as the Gallery of the Dragon where he meets Jorge Camacho who gives him his first oil paint box, and also Agustin Cardenas, Cesare Peverelli or Zao Wou-Ki.
In 1965, he exhibits for the first time his gouaches and oils on paper at the Transposition gallery in Paris. Two years later, he joins the school of the Syndicale Chamber of jewelery and works there from 1969 to 1971 as an apprentice jeweler at Arthus Bertrand. In 1967, he meets Salvador Dali who takes him under his wing and gives him his stage name. Dali introduces him to the Fernando Arrabal for which he creates his first etching. It is with this same Arrabal that Julius Baltazar create the "Infra-realistic" movement.
In 1972, Julius Baltazar is invited to stay and exhibit for the first time in Toronto. His friend Pierre Dmitrienko introduces him to the publisher Georges Visat who buys more than one hundred of his watercolors (the first purchaser is Max Ernst) and who teachs him the techniques of intaglio. He meets there Alain Piroir who becomes his copperplate printer. That same year, Julius Baltazar enters the André Biren gallery. This is the beginning of a deep friendship and collaboration. He meets many painters (André Marfaing, Jean Cortot, Olivier Debré, Antonio Saura, etc.). In 1975, he publishes his first bibliophile book, edited by Georges Visat.
In 1976, he lives in the Nordic Countries, exhibits in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Back in France, he meets the art critic Guy Marester which introduces him to the publisher-bookseller and collector Jacques Matarasso from Nice. The following year, he get married and set up his studio in Montmartre, where he meets Raoul Ubac. He exhibits at Liege. In the early 80s he meets Michel Butor, with whom he begins an intense collaboration. He also befriended Michel Deon. In 1983, he sheds new light on his work and decides to destroy a large number of his paintings and works on paper.
The year 1984 sees his first trips and exhibitions in New York and Toronto. Universities and North American institutions are acquiring his artist's books. During his second trip and exhibition in New York in 1985, he publishes his text "A l'infini le sable" ("In the infinite sand"), in homage to Pierre Dmitrienko, illustrated with two Raoul Ubac slate impressions, published by the Editions Adrien Maeght.
In 1986, André Marfaing brought him to the Committee of the Young Contemporary Engraving. The Wittockiana Brussels Library organizes for him his first retrospective of his books and manuscripts artists. In 1988, he built a worshop in Corsica, in Monticello, where are carried out most of his works on paper, then another one in Vitry-sur-Seine in 1989. He makes for France Telecom and Alcatel illustrated calling cards projects. In 1991, are born his first drawings on lithographic stone, at the Clot and Bramsen workshop in Paris. His exhibitions follow.
He receives in 1994, an order to create a gigantic master piece to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the driving down the Champs-Elysees by General de Gaulle, August 26, 1944 ; it occupy the floor of the Champs-Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe to the roundabout of the Champs-Elysees.
Julius Baltazar, during the last twenty years, has continued to create, to exhibit, in France and abroad. Many retrospectives of his artist books, paintings and prints have been devoted to him (Mediatheque of Issy-les-Moulineaux in 2007, Louis Nucera Library in Nice in 2007, Library Mediatheque of Nancy in 2009, Joe Bousquet House of Memories in Carcassonne in 2010, etc.).
Nowadays, Julius Baltazar lives and works in Paris, Corsica and Canada.

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