Bruno Schmeltz

Bruno Schmeltz is a painter born in Toulouse in 1938. When his father died, when he was only 14, he left Toulouse and moved to Paris. His taste for drawing encouraged him to take evening classes to prepare for a test to enter the National School of Fine Arts. When he was only 17, he was hired as a copyist at the Louvre, an apprenticeship he pursued when he was admitted to the School of Fine Arts. He soon left the school because he did not feel that was the right path for him. The rest of his career was solitary: he specialized in classical painting. After his military service, he set up his studio in the Pyrenees, which became his home port, while leading a life as a traveling artist. During this period, he did large-scale frescoes and stained glass windows, including those of the Dakar Cathedral. It was not until 1972 that he decided to devote himself to oil painting.

Over the years, Bruno Schmeltz developed a very personal style: hyper-realistic features, surrealist compositions, nudes, blue subjects, describe his paintings. Since 2010, parallel to the continuity of his main practice, he did a big collection about the myth of cinema of the Western. Inspired by the rural environment in which he lives, in 2014 the artist started to portray artisans while working, with their everyday tools and clothes, with a French realistic style from the 19th century.

In 1974, the artist exhibited in the space Pierre Cardin in Paris, exhibition that marked the beginning of his success. He then exhibited his work in public institutions and galleries, in Belgium but mostly in France.