In Memoriam, André Brasilier (1929–2026)

09 September 2026

Few artists have sustained such an unwavering belief in painting’s capacity to express beauty, harmony, and emotion as André Brasilier. Over a career spanning more than seven decades, he created a singular pictorial world poised between reality and reverie, transforming the familiar into something timeless. Opera Gallery is deeply saddened to announce that André Brasilier passed away today in Paris.

Born in Saumur in 1929, Brasilier developed an artistic language in which figuration was progressively distilled to its essential forms. Rather than reproduce the visible world, he sought to capture its sensations: the rhythm of horses in motion, the changing colours of a landscape, the harmony of music or the quiet presence of a figure. Through fluid lines, expanses of luminous colour and increasingly refined compositions, his paintings established a delicate equilibrium between abstraction and representation.

Certain subjects accompanied him throughout his life. Horses, first encountered in his native Saumur, embodied freedom, movement, and vitality. Music offered another form of harmony, translated in his paintings into colour and rhythm, while forests, seascapes, and changing seasons reflected his profound communion with nature. At the centre of this universe was his wife and muse, Chantal, whose presence over more than six decades brought an enduring intimacy and tenderness to his work.

Opera Gallery had the privilege of representing André Brasilier for over fifteen years, building a relationship founded as much on human connection as on a profound admiration for his work. We will remember not only an artist of remarkable sensitivity and singular vision, but a painter whose unwavering commitment to beauty, harmony, and emotion shaped an extraordinary body of work. His poetic world, at once intimate and universal, leaves an enduring legacy that will continue to resonate.