Bernard Lorjou was a French painter of vibrant expressionism. Born into an impoverished family, he described his education as ‘in the streets’. He began work in 1925 as a designer for the Parisian silk house Ducharne, where he met the artist and his future wife, Yvonne Mottet. Together, in 1934, they set up an art studio in Montmartre to pursue their own work alongside their day jobs.

He held his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie du Bac in 1945 and, in 1948, shared the prestigious Prix de la Critique with Bernard Buffet. Together with Buffet and the art critic Jean Bouret, Lorjou formed the anti-abstract group L’Homme Témoin.

Lorjou was inspired by politics and produced works in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Budapest in the 1950s, racism in the 60s, and a United Nations poster campaign against hunger in 1968. That same year, Yvonne died of leukaemia. In grief, Lorjou rented an estate in Marbella and painted, drew and sculpted prolifically. Moved by the Sharon Tate murder in 1969, he painted a series of works on the subject. He spoke to Roman Polanski, who allowed Lorjou to display the piece, The Marbella Studio, which was later purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

During the 1970s, he created large bronze statues and burnt-wood sculptures. Paintings and exhibitions continued until 1985, when the Palais de l’Europe in Menton organised a major retrospective.