Fernand Boilauges, a pseudonym for this very famous French author and journalist, was born in Lille, France in 1905. He began his career by decorating village stores and painting signs. As these activities were rather limiting to Monsieur Boilauges, he took up photography and began specializing in portraits of family groups. In his thirties Boilauges, who is also a talented writer, established himself as a journalist in Paris. During this time he also returned to his painting, bringing with him his experience as a photographer. He wanted to put on canvas the same scenes on which his lens had focused. To this he added the backdrops of his earlier career, remembering the carefully decorated shops he had once created. In all of Boilauges’ works one finds a harkening back to times and places gone by but always with an air of amusement. When he was forty-seven he exhibited at the “Contemporary Primitives” show at the Charpentier Gallery in Paris, and the same year at an exhibition in New York City. He also participated in a show, which had as its theme “Scenes from French Life”. Subsequently, he became well known, and numerous exhibitions followed in France and other parts of the world.

The artist’s precise style makes him a premature “superrealist” in a technical sense, but his warmth and humor give a charm to his works that places him well outside any such categories. His static ribbons of people all perfectly playing their roles, evokes a humor which one can hardly consider involuntary. Boilauges’ style is unique, expressing his view of the human experience in all its absurdity while reflecting his genial personality. His paintings are well accepted and may be seen in major collections throughout the world.