Jean-Michel Coulon (1920–2014) was a French painter from the School of Paris who had the particularity of having kept his work – over 600 paintings – almost secret over his artistic lifetime. Exhibits took place in Paris at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery[1][2] in 1949 and 1950 and in Brussels in 1971.
He was born in 1920 in Bordeaux, France. He was the grandson of Georges Coulon, vice-president of the Conseil d'État from 1898 to 1922, and the great-grandson of Eugène Pelletan and Eugène Scribe.[3][4]
During the 1930s he studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, then at preparatory classes to the French Grandes Ecoles at the Lycée Henri-IV, Paris. He undertook numerous visits to Germany, where he quickly became fluent, and to Italy after high school with his friend and future brother-in-law Olivier Debré He traveled on cargo ships along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Africa, on which he managed to board without paying any fees. He was witness to the increase of Fascist ideology: he saw Hitler in Berlin then Mussolini in Rome.
Coulon was 20 years old when war broke out. In 1943, the Vichy regime introduced the compulsory work service so he decided to leave Paris and obtained a false identity card. He went to Megève in the French Alps with Olivier Debré. It was during this period that the two friends both decided to devote themselves to painting.
In 1944, his brother, Jean-Rémi – 19 years old – was shot by the Germans at the Farm du By (Loiret).
He exhibited alone at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in 1950. The guest book shows signatures of many famous people. He took part in a group exhibit in New York, at the Sidney Janis gallery. He spent three months at the Maison Descartes, in Amsterdam, having won a scholarship from the French Government. He became familiar with the Dutch classic painters and learned Dutch.
Coulon visiting St Peter Church in Leiden (1950)
In 1952, his other younger brother, Jean-François – a 25-year-old officer in the French Air Force – crashed in a plane during a mission in Tunisia.
He married Caroline Garabedian in 1953. His house and studio in Saint-Jean de Braye, near Orleans, burned down in a fire in 1955. A great number of paintings were lost.
In the following year he spent two months in the US, where he visited the huge cities and was fascinated by New York. This first visit was the first of a long series of trips which provided inspiration for his painting.
In 1957 his only daughter was born.
In 1968, after France got out of the integrated NATO command, he moved to Brussels with his wife who worked at the American mission to NATO. They remained there until 1998.
From Brussels, the family traveled across Europe by car in all directions, with trips to cultural and artistic sights.
He took the car alone, sometimes, and left to explore some European countries, spending the night with local inhabitants, asking people to open very confidential illuminated archives or drawings kept out of the light.
Composition by Jean-Michel Coulon, 1960s
His 1971 exhibit in Brussels at the Regency gallery organized by Michel Vockaer was a success. Eighteen paintings were sold. There was supposed to be a series of three shows. Only the first was held. Coulon preferred to use the excuse of never being ready for the next series of paintings.
"Composition" Jean-Michel Coulon, 1970s
In 1999 he returned to live in Paris in the 16th arrondissement with a nearby studio where he worked every afternoon. He did not renew close contacts with the Paris galleries. He remained discreet, almost hidden. His work went from painting to collages, which were done on oil paintings dating from the 1950s and 1960s.
In 2012 his health declined and after a long hospital stay he was confined to a wheelchair. Going back and forth to the studio was no longer possible, so it remained untouched until his death. He composed collages in his apartment on sheets of heavy drawing paper. His spirit remaining intelligent and lively up to the end, he was working to the very last days, still with warm and bright colors.
Coulon died on October 25, 2014, at the age of 94. He is buried in Saint-Georges-de-Didonne (Charente-Maritime), with the generations of Coulons.
Description of the work
Coulon painted in the greatest secrecy until his death at the end of 2014; he did not let anyone enter his studio and he never showed his painting, even to his relatives.
Around 1,000 works were discovered the day after his death at the opening of his studio. Because he had lost the use of his legs, he had not been able to work there for several years.
Due to its recent discovery and the absence of comments left by the artist, the overall vision of Coulon's work is being considered and subject to discussion.
The main points of reflection concern in particular:
The evolution of his style (forms, colors, material) during the 70 years of his life as an artist,
The impact of the dramas of his life on his artistic choices, including the brutal death of his two brothers in 1944 and 1952 and the burning of his house and some of his works in 1955,
The secret that surrounded his artistic approach,
The opportunity to search for a key to understanding his work in letters he wrote during his travels, particularly to the United States and Italy, which have now been published with a foreword by Annie Cohen-Solal.
The art historian Lydia Harambourg proposed some answers in a first monograph of Coulon published in June 2018.
The evolution of the work can be schematically illustrated as follows:
Exhibitions
Exhibitions during Coulon's lifetime:
1949 : Group exhibition at Jeanne Bucher Gallery, Paris
^Yon, Jean-Claude (2000). Eugène Scribe: La fortune et la liberté. Paris: Librairie A-G Nizet. ISBN2707812439.
^Yon, Jean-Claude (2016). Eugène Scribe: Maître de la scène théâtrale et lyrique du XIXe siècle. Rennes: PUR (Presses universitaires de Rennes). ISBN978-2753550360.
