Arman, pen name of Fernandez Armand, was born in Nice in 1928. He died in New York October 22nd, 2005. The artist kept in mind his meeting with Yves Klein in 1946. At that time, he was a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nice .In 1949, he studied in Paris, at the Ecole du Louvre. At the beginning, he made a post cubist painting, representational, then abstract, but quickly broke of this art which seemed formal to him. In 1956, he invented his "stamps", inking-pads which, multiplied, form imprints on the canvas, playing with the color of ink and their arrangement. He got in touch with objects and begins to plan them, inked, on his canvas: pebbles, shells of egg, needles, etc. Following a "shell" on the coverage of a catalog of exhibition, Arman took his pen name in 1958. Little by little, his art leaded to the object itself, and towards an accumulation of this one. There is now heap of real objects, wastes of society which we put in front of it act. The series of "dustbins" appears in 1959. The pause of this period, way of provoking people will be the exhibition "Le Plein", in 1960, in the Iris Clert’s Gallery. At the instigation of Pierre Restany, Arman signed the manifesto of the New Realism in 1960; we defined the flourish of the artistic language there of the 60s. These years became for the artist those of the Accumulations, inclusions in glass frames or in polyester. His success is immense. He was interested, from 1961, in the decomposition of the subjects by the division and set his searches with numerous bronzes. Arman wanted to denounce the society, he proceeded to "destructions", destruction by the force, the destruction by the fire (violins, pianos, armchairs, etc.); the remains laid in plexiglass structures. The Combustions appeared in 1963. Two years later, his art was the joining of mechanical pieces. Arman took the American nationality in 1972. With The 80s, he devoted his time to monumental works. Arman cut, sliced sawed, severed, he accumulated, changed the intended purpose of many objects burned, broke, destroyed, by becoming attached to witness's role of a culture.

Arman (Armand Fernandez) est né le 17 novembre 1928 à Nice et décédé à New-York le 22 octobre 2005. Arman se familiarise dès l'enfance avec les objets du magasin d'Antiquité de son Père. Il commence à peindre à 10 ans, à 19 ans il rencontre Yves Klein. Après ses études aux Arts décoratifs de Nice et à l'école du Louvre à Paris, il partira enseigner à Madrid. De retour en France en 1951, sous l'influence de Serge Poliakoff et de Nicolas de Stael, il décide de signer de son prénom : Armand qui suite à une erreur d'impression sur son carton d'invitation deviendra Arman. En 1961 il fera sa 1ère expo à New York utilisant des nouveaux matériaux polyester et plexiglass. Succédant à ses accumulations d'objets il commence en 1962 les "Combustions" puis son succés grandissant, dans les années 1980 et 1990, l'éventail de ses oeuvres et de ses techniques s'élargit, il multiplie les diverses procédures d'exécutions, les réalisations monumentales s'imposent jusqu'au Palais de l'Elysée et à la gare St Lazare.