Francis Palanc

Francis Palanc

Francis Palanc (born Francis Palanque; 1928–2015) was a self-taught French artist from Vence, France. Palanc initially trained as a pastry chef in his family’s business, using the tools available in the bakery to
experiment with different techniques. At the age of sixteen, Palanc began working with the unconventional artistic materials that defined his career, such as crushed and dyed eggshells, egg whites, caramel, sawdust, and gum arabic, which he used to create textured compositions on canvas.

In his late teens, Palanc developed a personal visual language based on angular symbols and geometric forms. He referred to this concept as "Autogéométrie," a theory exploring the influence of geometry on human thought and perception. He believed that geometry had a profound, often subconscious, impact on mental processes and sought to express these ideas in his artwork.

Despite working in relative isolation, Palanc's art gained recognition in 1959 when a local dealer displayed some of his pieces. This led to the attention of Jean Dubuffet, the founder of the Art Brut movement. However, the sudden exposure was overwhelming for Palanc, and in 1960, he destroyed much of his work and withdrew from the art world entirely.

Although his career was brief, Palanc's work remains significant in the field of Art Brut. His surviving pieces, characterized by intricate geometric patterns and symbolic alphabets, are preserved in institutions
such as the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. His unique approach continues to be studied for its contributions to the relationship between art, language, and geometric abstraction.