Jean Langlois French, 1923-2014

Jean Langlois was born on 8 March 1923 in Nancy, Lorraine, into a family of remarkable breadth — his father a pioneering French aviator and later documentary filmmaker, his mother an alumna of the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Raised between Nancy and Paris, his formal training began at the Paris School of Applied Arts before the outbreak of the Second World War redirected his path. During his family's wartime posting to Algiers, he studied at the local École des Beaux-Arts, where a first encounter with the paintings of El Greco proved a defining revelation. Back in Paris in 1941, he immersed himself in the decorative painting programme at the School of Applied Arts, discovering Tintoretto, Goya, Daumier, Matisse, and the Impressionists in quick succession. He went on to study under the sculptor Jacques Zwoboda before taking part in the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 and fighting with the Allied forces until the war's end.

From 1947 to 1991, Langlois taught drawing at the Superior School of Modern Arts — over four decades of dedicated teaching that shaped generations of students. His own practice, conducted in the solitude of his studio, was resolutely figurative: classical in spirit, indifferent to trends, and devoted to the transcendent possibilities of paint. He co-founded the Talma Group in 1965 and exhibited widely, including at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Artistes Français, the Katia Granoff Gallery, and the Galerie Cardinal, where his work was shown continuously from 1982 to 1992. He was nominated for the Prix de la Critique in 1967 and awarded the Médaille d'or des Artistes Français in 1968. A retrospective of his career was held at the Chaumont Abbey in 2008.

Three months before his death, at the age of ninety, Langlois was still painting daily in his studio. He passed away on 15 January 2014, his dedication to the canvas undiminished to the last.