Paul Rebeyrolle was a French painter born near Limoges. Childhood illness left him immobilised for long periods, during which he learned to paint. The rural landscape and its traditions — hunting, fishing and slaughterhouses — later shaped his earthy-toned works featuring caricature-like figures.He moved to Paris in 1944 to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1950 he won the Prix de la Jeune Peinture (Young Painter Prize) and became a prominent figure in the realist movement, which opposed abstraction in post-war France. His work was often intense and violent in atmosphere.Outside the studio, he joined the French Communist Party but left before the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. That same year, his style loosened dramatically, and by the 1960s he embraced broad swathes of swirling, splashing paint.