ArtistFrench
James Coignard
2 active items
James Coignard was born on September 25, 1925, in Tours, France, and spent much of his life along the French Riviera, where the light and landscape shaped his sensibility as an artist. After a brief stint in French civil administration, he left at the age of 23 to study at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Nice, marking an irreversible turn toward art.
His early career gained momentum through a decisive encounter with gallerist Paul Hervieu in 1950. The collaboration with Galerie Paul Hervieu in Nice brought Coignard to the attention of collectors nationally and internationally, with Scandinavia emerging as a particularly receptive market from early on. His first Swedish exhibition was held at Malmo Museum in 1956, and in the early 1970s he established a lasting relationship with Galleri Ostermalm in Stockholm.
Coignard worked across painting, ceramics, sculpture, and printmaking, but it was printmaking, and one technique in particular, that came to define his practice. In 1968 he encountered Henri Goetz, the French-American Surrealist painter, who introduced him to the carborundum etching process. Carborundum, an abrasive compound applied directly to a metal plate, produces prints with a rich, textured surface that carries pigment in ways traditional etching cannot achieve. The result is something between a print and a relief: tactile, deeply colored, with a sculptural weight. Coignard embraced the technique fully and spent the following decades pushing its possibilities.
In 1978 he co-founded Pasnic, an etching atelier in Paris, which became central to his printmaking output for years. He maintained studios in Paris, Cannes, Antibes, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and New Orleans, and between 1985 and 1988 spent a sustained period working in New Orleans. Over his career he participated in more than 400 exhibitions across Europe, North America, and Japan. His work entered the permanent collections of institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the British Museum in London, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Musee d'Art Contemporain in Montreal.
Coignard died on March 7, 2008, in Cannes. At Nordic auction houses, his prints and mixed-media works appear regularly, with strong representation at Goteborgs Auktionsverk (28 items), Helsingborgs Auktionskammare (14), and Stadsauktion Sundsvall (12), reflecting the long-standing Scandinavian affinity for his work. Prices for his prints typically fall in the 6,000-8,000 SEK range.