Camille Bryen

Camille Bryenwas a French poet, painter, and engraver closely associated with lyrical abstraction and Art Informel. Born in Nantes, he began his career as a poet and illustrator, publishing experimental writings before turning to painting in the late 1930s. He moved within avant-garde circles in Paris, engaging with Surrealists and later with artists who would form the postwar abstract movement. His first exhibitions revealed a vocabulary of spontaneous forms, fractured lines, and organic structures that reflected both his poetic sensibility and a desire to liberate painting from figuration.

After World War II, Bryen became an important figure of the Nouvelle École de Paris. His work was included in landmark exhibitions such as Les Mains éblouies at Galerie Maeght (1947) and the Véhémences confrontées  (1951), which placed French abstraction in dialogue with American Abstract Expressionism. Throughout his career he produced paintings, engravings, and texts that embodied the vitality of Art Informel, with more than 400 exhibitions during his lifetime. Though his recognition declined after his death, his œuvre remains essential to understanding the experimental spirit of postwar European abstraction.