Who's Robert Vernet - Bonfort ?

An authentic artist whose work is at its peak !

Vernet-Bonfort is amazing and elusive ! He is so restless and casual that only in his work can we take him seriously.

To do so, we decided to pay him a visit in his world at "Nans les Pins" and cover part of his wonderful success itinerary.

Born an artist, Vernet-Bonfort strikes us as one of the few painters, ambitious enough to pursue a very personal work and wise enough not to stray himself in the compromises of seasonal fads.

In Vernet-Bonfort's work, we go to the very source of creation and we rediscover a technique which gives us the absolute certainty of authenticity.

But first, who is Vernet-Bonfort ?

        Born in Marseilles in 1934, Vernet-Bonfort studied at the Art School :"The Beaux-Arts"

        Following a childhood illness, he became deaf, he took refuge in painting as a way to express himself in a colorful and vivid manner. "After studying the old and present day masters, I chose my own style and stayed with figurative art."

Because of his handicap, Robert Vernet-Bonfort found himself at ease with visual work. Unencumbered by the outside world he just focused  his art and soon began to excel at it, making a career of it in .

Of course this did not happen overnight. But in his case he was naturally drawn in although he was not attracted to museums or the Academy.

Through the years, his perfectionism grew and enabled him to achieve a refined and mental work, visual memory and imagination brought him to efficiently play with glazes and warm tonalities.

Nevertheless he favors the poetic reality of a Humblot or stylesl reminiscent of Oudot, Baltus and Klimt.

"Painting is my universe" , Vernet-Bonfort told us. "Everything revolves around it"

He works eight to ten hours a day. The search for his method of expression shows that he seems to trap the elements of his dream into reality.

His composition is refined and yet imperceptibly baroque, his subtle but rigorous stroke  frames the architecture. His colors are modulated, the dominant never rough; they are harmonized with a varied and restrained medium. His canvases are lightly brushed or display wanderous scrapings. All of this allows the artist to create harmony, to play with the light, giving us access to his dream's pursuit.

Vernet-Bonfort's choice of his canvases' format justifies his inspiration. He is a master at transposing nature.

Contrary to many artists who lean toward sobriety, he chooses to fill his canvas. He brings his landscapes to life by adding  figures to the foreground, avoiding " a post card effect"; his bouquets are dense, "for protection" he confides. His work always finds a sense of balance, translated in colorful and subtle poems.

Vernet-Bonfort gives a lesson in artistic authenticity.

While color has become the music he hears no more, his sensitivity goes hand in hand with inspiration. The same unbounded inspiration has enabled him to celebrate Andre Castellot's "Castle of Ile de France and of Val de Loire in 1982" and to walk a faultless path, taking us to the garden of Hesperides in a festive world of wonders.

This is who Vernet-Bonfort is: an Artist whose means are at at their peak, a Great Artist, a True Artist.

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