BIOGRAPHY

Pierre Carbonel was born in 1925 in France in the Lower Pyrenees. His father died less than a year later, leaving his mother to raise her five children in extreme poverty. Nevertheless, Carbonel finished his elementary schooling and embarked on a series of occupations, first as a school headmaster, then joining the French army (during which he served in North Africa), and later he worked as a traveling salesman and agricultural statistician. He fell in love with a young woman while working as a teacher with juvenile delinquents, but when that relationship suddenly ended he quit his job. Thereafter he had a "disorganized existence," dabbling in archaeology, literature, and painting. While attempting to survive as an artist, he was befriended by the well-known French artist Jean Dubuffet. Dubuffet encouraged Carbonel in his art-making and purchased examples of his work for the Collection de l'Art Brut, now located in Lausanne, Switzerland. During his active period, from 1960 to 1981, Carbonel developed a secret process for making paintings with ink emulsions that resemble sedimentary stone formations. He lives in Ouchamps, in the countryside near Tours, France, but is no longer active as an artist.

BOOKS

The End is Near! Roger Manley. Illustrated. Bio.