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Olivier Debré

"When I become wind an drain, I participate to nature and nature passes through me."

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Notes of biography

Olivier Debré was born in Paris in 1920. He started painting very early. At first, he studied arts and architecture, but quickly devoted himself only to painting. At the beginning, Debré painted impressionist canvases, then abstract ones. In 1943, he really entered “into abstraction”.
His painting evolved alternatively : from sign to pasting and reciprocally. He was wounded during the Liberation of Paris. From 1948, the artist regularly showed his work in collective French exhibitions and international ones. He won many Prizes, became a committee member of Salons “Réalités Nouvelles”. In the same time and from 1950, personal exhibitions were multiplied in France and abroad.
Debré often created monumental paintings (Royan, Creteil, Montreal, Toulouse, Osaka, etc). He carried out decorations and costumes for the theatre, he built a graphic work and created splendid etchings. Olivier Debré was in full possession of his pictorial language in the Sixties. The titles of his paintings would not indicate any more that their chromatic components, wishing to make the one who looked sensitive only to colors and far from any idea association.
To find the “psychology of the color” is a kind of obsession for the artist. In 1979, Debré is named professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Few years later, he would be resident in the Rice University of Houston (Texas).
Debré is a discrete man and a man determined in his art. The artist died in 1999.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Debré », P. Courthion, le Musée de Poche, Paris, 1967
  • « Debré », B. Noël, Ed.Flammarion, Paris, 1984
  • « Douze notes sur les peintures d'O. Debré »,G. Lascault, In Artstudio, 1988
  • « O. Debré à deux voix », B. Noël, In Opus Internationnal, Paris, nov. 1990
  • « Olivier Debré », Haaken Christensen, Ed. Flammarion, 1992
  • « Pour les simples », F. A. Jamme, O. Debré (Illustr.), Ed. Fata Morgana, 1987
  • « Olivier Debré », Haaken A. Christensen, Ed. Fragments, 1998
  • « Une nuit qui n'aura pas de fin », G. Marester, O. Debré (Illustr.), Ed. Dumerchez, 2005
  • « Olivier Debré : Peintures noires », D. Abadie, Galerie Louis Carré & Cie, 2013
  • « Olivier Debré », L. Harambourg, Ed. Ides et Calendes, 2013
To read from the artist :
  • « L'espace et le comportement », L'Echoppe, Paris, 1987
  • « Rencontre avec Olivier Debré », M. Vignon, Ed. Unicité, 2012
Website :
No website dedicated to the artist.

More :


Art movements

+ NEW REALITIES / 1946-1956 / Etienne Béothy, Marcelle Cahn, etc.
+ LYRIC ART, ABSTRACT, TACHISM / 1950-1960 / Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover