About the artist:

“Polychromy or nothing! Colour is light, it is joy, music, friends. It is love and humour walking hand in hand.”

Born in Albi in 1942, of Aveyron origin, the grandson of a bandmaster and son of an accordionist, Bernard Cadène grew up torn between the violin, the double bass and drawing. Trained at the Beaux-Arts de Toulouse from 1961, he obtained his diploma as a drawing teacher in 1967, but chose advertising and then audiovisual work over teaching, without ever stopping painting. After years devoted to blacks and greys, he returned to full-time painting in 1995, the year colour definitively exploded in his work. Claiming Picasso, El Greco, Bacon and Soulages as influences, Cadène has had 175 solo exhibitions around the world, and his canvases are now in private and institutional collections in 26 countries.