Biography

François Binet has been recognized as an official copyist at the Louvre museum in Paris for the past fifteen years, during which he has produced copies of many great painters, but also produced some original works. For François, painting and copying are activities that feed off each other and come together in one another. He exposes his art annually at the Louvre Copyists Exposition, which takes place at the city hall of the 6th arrondissement in Paris.

As a child, François was already drawn to the delicate paintings of his grandmother, and discovered the great painters such as Matisse, Picasso, and Delacroix through his bother Pierre, a student at the School of Applied Arts. From that point on, his journey has been most divers, between mathematics, mime, travelling, music, and adventure, but finally stopping at the School of Beaux Arts at the age of 23.

After a break from painting, François came back to his initial passion in the 90s, painting the neighborhoods of Paris, participating in abstract painting, absolute freedom theories and distancing himself from more academic art. But François does not identify with these modern theories and critiques, and on a friend’s suggestion he starts copying masterworks to measure himself against the technical and creative challenges he has been seeking. His first copy at the Louvre was Fragonard’s “La charrette embourbee”, and by the time he starts his second copy he knows that he will not be able to stop this practice, which challenges him both technically and intellectually. His insights on the role of the copyist and the painter are at the heart of his creative process, and highlight his innermost conviction : far from restricting the artist, copying opens him up to a window of opportunities. Only the intellect can restrain art.