Daniel Authouart Biography
Daniel Authouart (1943 - ) was born in 1943 in Lillebonne, Normandy. In 1953 he moved with his mother to Rouen, then in ruins, which was beginning to recover from the Allied bombings. In this surreal scenario, the young Daniel plays with his friends, taking inspiration from the scenes of the films shown in the neighborhood cinemas. These first color films from across the Atlantic brought with them the "American legend". At 14 he left school. He draws, paints and discovers Toulouse-Lautrec's work "Au Moulin Rouge". For the teenager whose culture was limited to cinema and comics, it is a revelation. Toulouse-Lautrec's style attracted him and Toulouse-Lautrec's work would be his gateway to the world of art. At 16, Daniel Authouart entered the Beaux-Arts in Rouen and graduated in painting, interior architecture and advertising. In parallel with continuing his studies, he worked in interior design and advertising studios, without stopping painting. Having become a drawing teacher in colleges, he passed the entrance exam at ENNA and there in September 1972 he met Geneviève, a young artist who encouraged him and helped him to dedicate himself exclusively to painting. Authouart belongs to that tradition of artists, who have a disconcerting facility for drawing and painting (think of Rubens, Boucher, and more frivolously, of Boldini). The excessive imitation of reality practiced by the artist simultaneously induces a radical criticism of a universe subservient to materialistic values. In 2012 he presented the exhibition AUTHOUART A Retrospective 2002-20127 at the Contemporary Art Center of Saint-Pierre de Varengeville.
