Kristin and I had the privilege of meeting one of our favorite contemporary artists, James Coignard, at a vernissage in Frankfurt am Main. Art commentators have described Coignard’s paintings and graphic works as artistic adventures, an aesthetic game in which the destructive and the momentous mingle freely with the spontaneous and the sensual.

Born in Tours in 1925, James Coignard moved to Paris at an early age. His first Paris exhibition occurred in 1960. Since then, Coignard has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, and is well represented in both private and public collections including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. Today, Coignard is based in Antibes and Cannes.

Of course, we could not leave empty-handed--we fell for a painting entitled Deux Bleus (2004). Coignard dedicated the painting with a little doodle he created on the spot.

***Update - 1 August 2008*** I learned that James Coignard recently passed away at his home in southern France. This is a great loss for the art world and we are fortunate to have such wonderful works by which to remember him.

***Update - 11 October 2008*** Kristin's parents gave us the beautiful Deux Personnages (1996) as a wedding gift. Like a number of our other pieces by James Coignard, it is a carborundum lithograph. It has soothing brown tones, with the classic Coignard faces and red and blue details.