Gérard BONTEMPS was born in Petit Quevilly, near Rouen, on August 22, 1944.

Since 1982 his works have been displayed in numerous personal exhibitions and galleries, including the Salon d’Automne, the Salon Violet in Paris and the Salon des Artistes Normands in Rouen.

As a high school student BONTEMPS was recognized as a young talent by painting and drawing teacher Henri SERGENT, who helped him join the Beaux-Arts of Rouen.

In 1975 he befriended Jef FRIBOULET, the renowned Norman painter/sculptor who had already trained many a young artist, and under his tutelage BONTEMPS refined his technique while also learning how to assert his own artistic vision. "He worked with the master, loves and admires him, but nevertheless produces works of his own," wrote Paris-Normandie journalist Roger BALAVOINE in 1988.

Gérard BONTEMPS has depicted his share of people and landscapes, but his preference is undoubtedly still life, as it is the genre that allows him to restore to nature its inherent liveliness while also catering to his taste for artistic construction.

Starting with somber nakedness of black canvas, Gérard BONTEMPS does no less than recreate space itself. Then, through vision and acrylic paint, he weaves a seamless ensemble of cubism, expressionism and nabism, all the while maintaining a sense of structure that supports both harmony and light.

According to Roger BALAVOINE of Paris-Normandie, "Bontemps is a painter of light…he does not paint objects… but rather the very roots of light… beaming effervescently from every direction."