Rustin Jean

French painter, and an important figurative artist. At the age of 19 he moved to Paris where he studied at the School of Fine Arts, in the studio of Untersteller. During the 1950s he was mainly preoccupied with abstract painting but from the 1970s he embarked on figuration. He created a bizarre world of human figures, where an existential dead-end is transformed into fright, abhorrence, pity but also relief. The work of Jean Rustin is relatively little known. Until the late 1960s, his abstract painting had a large following in France. However, while most European and American artists were widening the gap between themselves and the figurative traditions that preceded Modernism, Rustin started to swim against the current, a decision which cost him dearly in the short term. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less