DEBRE Olivier

Biography of Olivier Debré

Olivier Debré was born in Paris in 1920 into an intellectual family, grandson of the famous professor Robert Debré and brother of Michel Debré, a politician. Very early, he turned to art and entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Trained in both painting and architecture, it gradually moves towards abstract expression. While he admires the work of Nicolas de Staël, he forges a very personal style, made of large flats of color, luminous vibrations and wide gestures, inspired by nature and landscape.

Sensitive abstraction

Unlike geometric abstraction artists such as Vasarely or Aurélie Nemours, Olivier Debré explores an abstraction known as lyric or sensitive. He seeks to transmit the emotion of a place, for a moment, through pictorial matter. His paintings often bear titles linked to regions – Loire, Norway, China – and reflect his intuitive relationship with space and the world. Colour becomes a vector of emotion, breath, silence.

International Recognition

Olivier Debré participates in numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, including the Venice Biennale and the Kassel Documenta. He also made theatre sets, notably for the Paris Opera. His fame extends far beyond artistic circles, and several institutions devote retrospectives to him. He died in 1999, leaving a contemplative work marked by the power of gesture and the poetry of light.

The works of Olivier Debré at Galerie 125

Galerie 125 does not currently present works by Olivier Debré, but the sensitivity of his pictorial approach is reflected in works by artists such as Zao Wou-Ki, Jean Miotte or François Morellet, some of which are available in the gallery. These artists share this quest for a balance between gesture, colour and space, in an approach where abstraction rhymes with emotion.