Thierry Lefort - Biography

Recent exhibitions

2023 - June, New Workshop, Saint-Ouen
2022 - November Fahrenheit exhibition presented by Yoyo Maeght, Paris
2022 - October, Inks and oils, Galerie Sweeney, 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, Constentin 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 learning, that he picked up pencils, brushes, pastels and created his first drawings and his first paintings. It is the revelation, he finds his own way of understanding the world, its light, its colors and above all its beauty. Then it was Chinese calligraphy, practiced in the province of Henan in China, which led him towards greater clarity of line.

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

With Thierry Lefort we can speak of the "Renaissance of Figuration", with all that that entails in terms of simplicity, elegance and purity, even spirituality. Paul Cézanne, to whom he had 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 away from ourselves 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 rereading that he offers us of the world around him, in particular the industrial and urban world. For his works, he favors painting "on the ground", 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 retain 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 “motive” are only an alibi for him. They are the starting point of a complex composition where masses, lines, shapes, lights and colors are forced into balance. He happily achieves this balance.

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 is enriched by the publication of two limited edition prints which also quickly sold out.

Thierry Lefort, Paris exhibition, 2021

The year 2022 will see the organization of numerous exhibitions of the works of Thierry Lefort.

In 2022, Thierry Lefort is invited by the city of Burbank to create a monumental work of more than 150 m2. All stages of 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, confirms the order given 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 building 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 towards Arizona and the Grand Canyon. There, the desire to paint the immense in tiny made 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 the media and the film industry with the studios of major companies 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 more than 150 m2. All stages of 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.

Highlight of the year 2022, the exhibition presented by Yoyo Maeght in Paris where more than 3,000 people were able, over the 5 days of the exhibition, to discover recent paintings.

Thierry Lefort, Paris Exhibition, 2022. Yoyo Maeght Curator

In June 2023, Thierry Lefort inaugurates his new workshop, three days. Registrations limited so that everyone is welcomed by Thierry Lefort and Yoyo Maeght.