View source for René Brô

{{Infobox artist
| name          = René Brô
| image         =
| image_size    = 225px
| caption       = René Brô in the locality of Courgeron
| birth_name    = René Brault
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1930|11|21|mf=yes}}
| birth_place   = Charenton, France
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1986|12|06|1930|11|21|mf=yes}}
| death_place   = Courgeron<br />[[Le Pin-au-Haras]]<br />[[Lower Normandy]], France
| nationality   = French
| known_for     = painter<br />drawer<br />potter
| training      =
| movement      =
| notable_works =
| patrons       =
| awards        =
}}
'''René Brô''' (November 21, 1930 – December 6, 1986) was a French artist.
==Life and work==
René Brô was born in [[Charenton-le-Pont|Charenton]] outside Paris. After finishing his schooling in 1944 by the age of fourteen, he began study art at different art schools. Parallelly he supported himself as a commercial artist. In the late 1940s, he was a frequent visitor to [[Musée de l'Homme]] and [[Louvre]]. He was in particularly attracted to [[primitive art]] and to the [[art of ancient Egypt]]. Brô's works of this period – pottery, drawings and paintings – are close to the works of [[Paul Klee]] or to that which [[Jean Dubuffet]] characterized as [[art brut]].<ref name="guggenheim-venice1">{{cite web |url=http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/biografia.php?id_art=27 |title=Guggenheim |access-date=2010-11-16 |archive-date=2010-11-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126084426/http://guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/biografia.php?id_art=27 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In 1949 René Brô was exhibiting for the first time, at a joint exhibition in Paris. Afterwards he hitchhiked to Italy. During this trip he got to know the two years older Austrian painter [[Friedensreich Hundertwasser|Hundertwasser]] who was on the move too; they were to be lifelong friends. Soon after their return to France in 1950, they jointly grappled with [[mural painting]] on the walls of a pavilion of the family Dumage where Hundertwasser stayed in [[Saint-Mandé]] outside Paris. Many years later, when this building was to be torn down in 1964, the two murals were saved from the demolition. One of them, ''La pêche miraculeuse'' (The miraculous draught), is now in [[KunstHausWien]], Hundertwasser's own museum in [[Vienna]]. The other wall, ''Paradis – Pays des hommes, oiseaux et navires'' (Paradise – Land of men, of trees, birds and ships) came to a synagogue on [[Long Island]], New York, where it was removed in 2008.<ref>{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091227114831/http://bro.perso.libertysurf.fr/Sommaire.htm |title=René Brô Summary |date=Dec 27, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091227080141/http://bro.perso.libertysurf.fr/Bro-Hundertwasser.htm |date=Dec 27, 2009 |title=Works painted in collaboration with Hundertwasser}}</ref>
These two friends went separate ways and got married, Brô had children, and both were engaged in their own artistic projects, but they accompanied each other on trips throughout the years to [[North Africa]], [[Mexico]], [[India]], [[Nepal]], and [[Polynesia]]. In 1957 and for some years after they shared a studio in the old French village of Courgeron in the municipality of [[Le Pin-au-Haras]], [[Lower Normandy]], a location where Brô at least went on visiting until his death.
In 1954 Brô had his first one-man exhibition in Paris. In 1964, he was invited to represent France at the [[Venice Biennial]]. In 1968 he set up a studio in [[Venice]], where he later worked for a decade.
He had many successful exhibitions around Europe and the world in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1984 he spent several months in [[Tahiti]], where he had a show at the [[Musée Gauguin]]. He returned two years later and then withdrew to his country house in the Norman Courgeron, dying at the age of 56.<ref name="guggenheim-venice1"/>
==Footnotes==
<references />
==External links==
* [http://bro.perso.libertysurf.fr/Sommaire.htm A French compilation of life and work]
* [http://www.kunsthauswien.com/en/museum/the-museum KunstHausWien Museum Hundertwasser]
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[[Category:1986 deaths]]
[[Category:French artists]]
[[Category:1930 births]]
[[Category:People from Charenton-le-Pont]]