Like Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall, Paul Aizpiri belongs to the special category of “Mediterranean Artist,” painters whose works seem to glow with the sun of Southern Europe. Perhaps, with a mother from Italy and a father from the Spanish Basque country, the French-born Aizpiri was destined to view the world in brilliant shades of azure, carmine and gold. His busy, breathless brushwork and bright colored palette, summon up Riviera promenades, Venetian canals, circus performers, and bouquets of exotic blossoms, pulsing with energy and a relentless joie de vivre.

Aizpiri’s canvases are part Impressionist, part Expressionist, part Cubist, but always figurative. They are easily accessible and enormously popular. Some art critics contend they are beautiful surfaces with little depth. But there is a darker, deeper side to Aizpiri’s work, rooted in his life experience.

Born in Paris in 1919 with a Basque background, Paul Aizpiri studied painting at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Public acknowledgement of his talent began in the 1940’s and progressed from many exhibitions held in various countries around the world. He won the National Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale in 1951.

Aizpiri’s passion for nature and families are self-evident within his artworks. The bold brushstrokes and bright colored palette in his fantastical figurative paintings are symbols of his joy and happiness in life. His works are painted poetry filled with a glow of love with such motifs as children, bicycles, airplanes, birds, fish and the sun, flying over the skies of Paris, Saint Tropez and Venice.