(Boulogne-Billancourt, 1924 – Paris, 1994)

Following a distressing childhood, Jacques Doucet became a revolutionary child, eager for freedom, passionate about painting and poetry. In 1941, he travelled to Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire to meet Max Jacob, who strongly encouraged him to follow the path of artistic creation. Doucet then embarked on a painting career and exhibited at the Autumn Salon in 1943 and 1944. Politically engaged, he was arrested during the military occupation of France. After the liberation of Paris, Doucet resumed his work and exhibited at the “Salon des Surindépendants” in 1946 and 1947.

During the year 1947, Jacques Doucet was invited together with the Dutch painter Corneille to Budapest, where he exhibited and met with the Europaï Iskola painters. Back in Paris, he joined the Revolutionary Surrealism Group and the CoBrA mouvement, an « international of experimental artists » whose short lifespan lasted from 1948 to 1951. Experimentation and spontaneity were at the core of these artists’ approach which derived its  inspiration from childrens’ paintings, graffiti and folk or tribal art. Doucet participated in all the CoBrA exhibitions from the first experimental art show in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam in 1949, to the ultimate exhibition in Liège in 1951.

After the CoBrA adventure, Doucet moved away from figuration and composed small paintings with vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes in contrasting colors. The painter experienced his  contact with matter as a necessity, a spiritual quest as well as a sensual pleasure. Not long after, the use of collage enabled him to “renew his vision”. He combined fragments of works, childrens’ drawings, and magazines, pursuing a vivid thirst for experimentation that led him in 1969/70 to the conception of “petrifications” assembling objects and fragments to be set in resin.

Until the end of his life, in 1994, the shapes of Doucet’s paintings continued to develop, as did the images of lyricism and spirituality that enamate from them. Doucet was engaged in an intimate struggle with his paintings and was constantly  retouching them. As the painter would say, “it is when I destroy the painting that it finds its breath and true life”.