Ernest Pignon-Ernest
Born in Nice, 1942 and lives in Paris
Ernest Pignon-Ernest had a revelation at age 12 when he discovered Picasso and later El Greco and Bacon. To avoid being confused with the french painter Édouard Pignon, he adopted his artist’s name when he started creating his first ephemeral images on telephone booths in Paris or public walls with the objective of “awakening memories“.
His work is indeed very political, his charcoal drawings denouncing wars, xenophobia, injustices, human rights violations. The committed artist is also known for his portraits of famous people (musicians, writers, poets) including the iconic one of Rimbaud. Initiator, with Daniel Buren, of the French urban art, Ernest Pignon-Ernest considers that his work is not to be visited in the museum but that it must be lived in the street where it echoes the events which took place there.
