Jean-Baptiste Sécheret is a French artist born in 1957. His artistic activity began at the same time as the problems of postmodernism were emerging. In 1976, he entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From 1984 to 1986, he was a resident at Casa de Velázquez in Madrid. He teaches at the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Belleville.

Against a backdrop of questioning and criticism of grand narratives and ideologies, of which modernity is a part, Jean-Baptiste Sécheret developed a body of work deeply rooted in reality, revolving around classic subjects such as landscape, still life and portraiture. In his landscapes, he focuses on modern architectural ensembles of simple forms, with views of factories, silos, bridges, quays, etc. He also depicts natural elements, trees, foliage, mountains and sea horizons.

Man is absent from Sécheret’s landscapes. Apart from the occasional tiny silhouette on a beach, they are for the most part empty worlds of humanity and solitude. His work shows a great sensitivity to light, with its marked contrasts, to space and to composition, elaborating rather narrow points of view on his motifs. There’s something of both Edward Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico in his urban landscapes. A feeling of emptiness and melancholy.

He works on the same themes for a long time. He takes them up, develops them, simplifies them, transforms them. Sécheret lived in Trouville near the Roches noires, where illustrious predecessors such as Marcel Proust and Marguerite Duras stayed. He portrayed the old hotel from the same point of view, dozens of times switching from one technique to another (painting, drawing, engraving).

Alongside his painting, Sécheret has a very extensive printmaking practice. He explored all techniques: drypoint, etching, aquatint, woodcut and lithography, the latter dominating his practice. For Jacques Thuillier, Professor at the University of Paris and the Collège de France, Sécheret is “among the finest lithographers of his time”.[1]with a remarkable mastery of blacks, giving them extraordinary depth. Sécheret also knew how to create whites of a rare quality, as in Versailles sous la neige, 1996 (L.104).

Very early in his career, from 1980 onwards, he took part in group exhibitions. Winner of the first Mario Avati Printmaking Prize in 2013, his work was presented the following year at the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

[1] Jacques Thuillier, “Hommage à Jean-Baptiste Sécheret”, in Roland Plumart (ed.), Jean-Baptiste Sécheret. Engraved and lithographed work 1979-2001 Paris, Musée de Gravelines – Association Malbodium Museum, 2001, p. 6.