La Ferté sous Jouarre, Circa 2010

Jacques Coquillay  

Jacques Coquillay was born on 3rd June, 1935 in Val de Loire. He developed a passion for drawing at the age of ten, this passion further developed during his schooling at Ecole des beaux-arts in Tours followed by Beaux Arts Paris. At the end of his studies, when he obtained a national diploma in sculpture and visual arts, he specialized in two different techniques: pastel and sculpture. He then met Jean Carton, Georges Hilbert and Raimond Martin, with whom he formed a group of young sculptors, under the expert supervision of Paul Belmondo.

Jacques Coquillay received several awards for his work. In 1965, he obtained an award from the General Council of the Oise region and Prix Signature in 1970. He received a gold medal in sculpture by the Société des artistes français. In 1980, he received the Edouard-Marcel Sandoz award from the Taylor foundation. The Fine Arts academy awarded him the Raphaël Leygues award in 1981. He was elected vice president of Société des artistes français in 1983, he took care of this job until 1991. In 1993 he received the Jehan des Vignes-Rouges award from the Versailles academy. In 1995, the National Marine made him the official painter of the Marine.

His work is also part of museum corridors like the Musée d’Art moderne in Paris, Musée d'art contemporain in Fontainebleau, not to mention Musée Lambinet in Versailles. A retrospective of his work took place at the Salon d’automne in 1992 and his works are exhibited in USA and Europe, these achieved international fame.