Thierry Lefort - Biography

Recent exhibitions

2024 - Cap Ferret
2024 - May, Château de Malleret, Bordeaux
2024 - May Château Beaupin, Marseille
2024 - February, Galerie avenue Matignon, Paris
2023 - Montreuil Art Center
2023 - June, New Workshop, Saint-Ouen
2022 - November "Fahrenheit" by Yoyo Maeght, Paris
2022 - October, Inks and oils, Sweeney Gallery, Bordeaux
2022 - July, Recent works, Château de Sannes, Luberon
2022 - March, Workshop, Recent works, Saint-Ouen
2021 - September, First exhibition presented by Yoyo Maeght, Paris
2020 - August, Tokyo Museum of Modern Art
2015 - August, Tokyo Museum of Modern Art
2015 - June, Constantine Palace, Saint Petersburg

Exhibition booklets

Thierry Lefort and Yoyo Maeght, June 2023

Thierry Lefort was born in 1967. It was at the age of twelve, without any theoretical or technical training, that he picked up pencils, brushes, pastels and created his first drawings and paintings. It was a revelation, he found his own way of understanding the world, its light, its colors and especially its beauty. Then it was Chinese calligraphy, practiced in the Henan province of China, which led him towards a greater clarity of line.

Thierry Lefort, Oil on wood panel, 41 x 33 cm

With Thierry Lefort we can speak of the "Renaissance of Figuration", with all that this implies in terms of simplicity, elegance and purity, even spirituality. Paul Cézanne, to whom he devotes boundless admiration, said that " painting from nature is not slavishly copying, it is realizing one's sensations" . Thierry Lefort offers us the opportunity to reach our own feelings. "The act of painting and drawing demands such obedience that it becomes hypnosis, that it tears us from our person to the point that time and the world around us no longer exist." Jean Cocteau. Lefort Thierry, "Full frame", Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

The strength and particularity of Thierry Lefort reside not only in his technique, but also and above all in the reinterpretation he offers us of the world around him, in particular the industrial and urban world. For his works, he prefers to paint "on location", seeking to capture the world in its entirety, in the intensity and accuracy of its lights, its shapes and its colors. Thierry Lefort is a master in the art of transcending life to keep only what is best in it, offering an enthusiastic and optimistic look at places as diverse as train stations, factories, bridges and even ordinary parking lots. However, in the representations he makes of these places, the human is absent, but we suspect it.

Thierry Lefort "The Flight of the Grasshoppers", Oil on canvas, 81 x 60 cm

While in his paintings everything is conducive to the rediscovery of beauty, make no mistake, Thierry Lefort does not seek to deliver a faithful image of the decor, the landscapes, the cities that he paints. The "subject" and the "motif" are only an alibi for him. They are the starting point of a complex composition where the masses, the lines, the shapes, the lights and the colors are forced into balance. He achieves this balance with happiness.

Thierry Lefort, "Rosanna", Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

In September 2021, Yoyo Maeght chose to exhibit his paintings in Paris, this first collaboration was enriched by the publication of two limited edition prints which also quickly sold out.

Thierry Lefort, Paris exhibition, 2021

The year 2022 sees the organization of numerous exhibitions of Thierry Lefort's works.

In 2022, Thierry Lefort was invited by the city of Burbank to create a monumental work of more than 150 m2. All the stages of the creation were captured on video which will soon be the subject of a documentary.

In the spring of 2022, the city of Burbank, in Los Angeles County, California, confirmed the commission made to Thierry Lefort for a monumental work for a wall at the intersection of Orange Grove Avenue and San Fernando Boulevard.

Thierry Lefort will spend the entire summer of 2022 creating the wall himself, adapting his model to the scale of the wall. For a few days, before tackling this monumental work, Thierry Lefort escapes from Los Angeles to drive to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. There, the desire to paint the immense in tiny form makes him create the Hualapaï series, canvases as small as the Burbank mural is large.

The City of Burbank, in Los Angeles County, is the world capital of media and the film industry with major studios such as The Walt Disney Company, Touchstone Pictures, ABC, Warner Bros, NBC and Warner Music. It was at the request of the city that Thierry Lefort created this monumental work of over 150 m2. All stages of the creation were captured on video which will soon be the subject of a documentary.

Thierry Lefort, Wall of +150 m2 in Burbank, California. 2022

Thierry Lefort, Burbank print project.

The highlight of 2022 was the exhibition presented by Yoyo Maeght in Paris, where over 3,000 people were able to discover recent paintings over the 5 days of the exhibition.

Thierry Lefort, Exhibition Paris, 2022. Yoyo Maeght Curator

In June 2023, Thierry Lefort inaugurates his new workshop, three days. Limited registrations so that everyone can be welcomed by Thierry Lefort and Yoyo Maeght.

Thierry Lefort’s workshop, June 2023

Thierry Lefort, Château de Sannes exhibition, 2022

The year 2024 begins with an exhibition organized by Yoyo Maeght in Paris, presenting paintings, works on paper and prints. and accompanied by a text by the writer Jean-Christophe Grangé.

Thierry Lefort, Rue de Penthièvre 2024

For the exhibition at the Château de Malleret, Thierry Lefort creates large formats, always sublimating oil painting on canvas, and presents his new creations, true three-dimensional works, where wood, metal and paint combine to create astonishing painted sculptures.