Armand Nakache Art

Armand Nakache was one of the great painters of the École de Paris and the second mid-twenty century. Armand Nakache was the foremost champion of Expressionism in France, an area unfairly shunned by a society more attracted to the charms of classical painting, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, or even the mysteries of Cubism. Hard and soft at the same time, he gave us his works, sometimes flirting with Hieronimus Bosch, Breugel, Goya, Daumier and Rouault. Armand Nakache, tormented by the horror of the war and certainly irritated by the carelessness of his contemporaries, sought to leave us a message through his work, warning against the errors of our society. Disturbing and endearing at the same time, Armand Nakache was not only a witness of his time but also an outstanding visionary and master of the extraordinary and of color, worth once and for all the admiration of many. In the fifties, the paintings of this artist were more expensive than those of Bernard Buffet or other large paintings. This master of the fantastic Expressionism, produced as strong if not more works than Ensor, Kokoschka, Rouault, Soutine or Vlaminck. He gave up painting to go off and fight in World War I, returning a decorated war hero. He ended the war as a lieutenant. His return to painting was difficult and he struggled to make ends meet with a number of different jobs. Working tirelessly, he participated in the creation of the Populist Salon, where he became the Secretary-General. In 1947, he inaugurated the series of clowns and painted couples without any complacency as if mankind was born under the sign of the curse. The conflict of 1914–1918 and of 1939–1945 have left their traces in Nakache, who paints as if to exorcise an invisible demon that came to inhabit. Strangely, life pulsates behind the grotesque and creepy masks and we feel that Nakache painted his canvases with a passion disproportionate and a fierce desire to excel.