Pierre Arman

Pierre Arman was born in Nice, France in 1928. Inspired by Van Gogh, Arman would drop the second part of his full name Armand Fernandez and use Armand as his signature. It was in 1958, when a gallery mistakenly omitted the "d" from his name. The artist was pleased with the incorrect spelling and would use "Arman" as his signature ever since.

Encouraged by the success of some first exhibitions in London and Paris in 1956, Arman would start his "Accumulations" project in 1959, which became an integral part of his profile for a long time. The Accumulations basically describe the assembling of everyday objects collected by the artist very much like surrealist objets trouvés or Marcel Duchamps’ ready-mades. In Armans concept the objects are assembled and exhibited in boxes or vitrines as they were. As Arman did neither change nor arrange them, he would introduce „the element of chance“ to his work thus reducing the artistic acitvtity to the minimum of choosing and assembling the objects and let them speak for themselves. It was in the 1980s, when Arman developped his strong obsession with violins as objects speaking of beauty and perfection.

Arman’s works have been exhibited around the globe. The Tate Gallery in London as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris, Gallery Beaubourg in Vence, Marlborough Gallery in Monaco, and the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland have been hosting his works. In October 2005, Arman died in New York.