Rating and value of Rémi Blanchard's works, drawings and paintings

If you own a work by or based on the artist Rémi Blanchard and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and send you a precise estimate of its value on the current market.

Then, if you wish to sell your work, we will direct you to the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price.

Artist's rating and value

An important artist of the late 20th century, Rémi Blanchard's works are prized by collectors. On the auction block, his childlike paintings are particularly popular.

On the auction block, the prices at which his works sell range from €30 to €21,000, a substantial range but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to the artist's works.

A work signed by Blanchard can fetch tens of thousands of euros in the auction room. Witness his acrylic on canvas sold for €21,000 in 2019.

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

The artist's style and works

It is precisely in this fusion of spontaneity and mastery that Rémy Blanchard's style and technique come into their own:

How, in an art world often turned towards abstraction and intellectual reflection, does he manage to breathe new life into popular forms and the childlike imagination, while retaining an undeniable visual power?

Through his participation in the Figuration Libre movement, Blanchard makes his mark with dynamic compositions in which color, often vivid and saturated, invades the canvas, creating striking contrasts between the flat tints and bold lines that delineate his figures.

The figures he paints, often inspired by the animal world or fantastic creatures, are both simple and profound, marked by an energetic, fluid touch that gives the impression of total freedom in execution.

The line, willingly thick and expressive, may appear childlike, but it possesses a strength and direction that anchors the drawing in a complex reality.

Through his almost naive treatment, he manages to infuse his works with an apparent lightness, while introducing, beneath this simplicity, a richness of interpretation and emotional depth. 

Blanchard thus succeeds in bringing popular culture and contemporary techniques into dialogue, offering a pictorial vision that is both raw and refined.

Far from being merely illustrative, his works provoke interaction with the viewer, inviting him to explore a world where innocence and modernity meet in an explosion of shapes and colors.

It is in this constant interplay between naiveté and sophistication that he makes his mark, opening up a space of expression where art becomes an invitation to feel, above all.

The life of Rémi Blanchard

Rémi Blanchard was born in 1958 into a large family from Nantes. With an early passion for art, Rémi Blanchard entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Quimper and took pottery classes with his brother. He moved to Paris in the early 80s.

In Paris, he collaborated with friends he had met at the Beaux-Arts. He also held his first solo exhibitions, which were a great success. A year later, Rémi Blanchard was invited to exhibit in New York. This marked the start of an international career.

Inspired by the great masters of the 19th century, such as Van Gogh and Chagall, Blanchard paints his childhood memories, shared with his many brothers and sisters. This nostalgia would greatly inspire his way of painting.

In the 80s, during his travels to San Francisco, Blanchard met the "Beatniks"artists. This movement was to have a considerable influence on his artistic style and his perception of art. Thus, Blanchard adopted their bohemian, nomadic lifestyle, and drew inspiration from it for his works.

However, Rémi Blanchard was associated with the figuration libre movement, which he created alongside François Boisrond and Robert Combas. Thus, the artist became a major figure of this movement.

Highly publicized in the 80s, figuration libre exploded and rejected elitist art.

Blanchard drew his inspiration from the world of comics, creating a less rigid, formal atmosphere. 

Rémi Blanchard died of an overdose in 1993. Despite his short career, the artist established himself as a major figure in French contemporary art.

Focus on Le retour de l'enfant prodigue, 1985.

In Le Retour de l'enfant prodigue (1985) that Rémy Blanchard's work achieves a surprisingly human and striking dimension:

How, through such a universal biblical scene, does he manage to distill such emotional intensity using seemingly naïve forms and a bright color palette?

The artist chooses to depict this key moment of family reconciliation not in a traditional version, but by immersing it in a universe populated by simplified, almost caricatured animal and human figures.

Father, son and older brother are depicted with thick strokes and a deliberately primitive geometry, as if Blanchard wanted to capture the raw essence of emotion rather than its narrative complexity. 

The canvas, bathed in vivid colors - from bright oranges to deep greens - brings out a palpable, almost excessive energy. Each figure seems to vibrate in the space of the canvas, as if suspended in a visual and emotional momentum.

The thick lines, which structure the figures and spaces, contribute to this sensation of movement, of uninterrupted dynamics.

The background, with its almost raw texture, seems to merge with the figures, erasing the boundaries between them and the environment, and reinforcing this impression of fluidity and harmony. 

Beyond the narrative aspect, Blanchard manages to make the scene deeply emotional, both joyful and poignant, thanks to his technique that blends simplicity and depth. The use of a childlike style, far from diminishing the intensity of the subject, lends it an immediacy and universality that touches the heart.

Through this fusion of form and color, he succeeds in making this moment of reconciliation as much a visual experience as an emotional one, where every character, every gesture, seems to resonate with a timeless truth.

Rémy Blanchard's imprint on his period

It is precisely in his daring blend of popular and contemporary art that Rémy Blanchard's imprint on his era is revealed: how did an artist who managed to restore such vitality to simple, colorful forms manage to establish himself as one of the central figures of Figuration Libre?

In a world where the avant-gardes had often lost themselves in complex theoretical reflections, Blanchard chose to reconnect with a direct, dynamic, almost primitive visual expression.

His works, bathed in bright colors and frank forms, propel figurative art into a modernity freed from academic conventions, while maintaining a constant dialogue with popular culture, comic strips and the collective imagination. 

Beyond his technique, it's the spirit of his work that marks his era. In a period when contemporary art was searching for itself, when abstraction and minimalism dominated, Blanchard offered a new vision of figuration, nourished by youthful spontaneity and a rejection of the classical boundaries of art.

His intuitive and energetic approach, both brutal and poetic, captures the very essence of a society in the throes of change, where the simplification of forms and explosion of color become a mirror of the cultural effervescence of the 1980s.

Through his refusal of hierarchies and his ability to renew the visual imagination, Blanchard leaves an indelible mark, reinventing art in a way that is both playful and profound, popular and demanding.

The stylistic influences of Rémi Blanchard

It is precisely in this unexpected mix of influences that Rémy Blanchard's style is defined: how, at the crossroads between popular art, comics and the avant-garde, does he manage to create such a clean, energetic aesthetic?

His many and varied influences draw on the simplified forms of naive art, the imaginary world of advertising posters and the graphic universe of comic books.

The vivid colors and thick lines that structure his compositions recall the work of American pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, while moving away from the coldness of advertising iconography to infuse his characters with an almost human dimension. 

Furthermore, the deliberately simplified, childlike aesthetic echoes currents such as the "primitivism" of a Picasso or the "fauvism" of Vlaminck, who, through the unbridled use of color and the distortion of forms, moved away from naturalistic representation to make way for a meaningful abstraction.

Blanchard, however, incorporates these influences with such spontaneity that he reinvents them in his own way, playing on popular iconography to give them a visual force of their own.

His works are a kaleidoscope of styles, an assemblage of influences that, far from being scattered, merge into a coherent universe where visual energy takes precedence over any form of conceptual elaboration.

Through this fusion of references, Blanchard succeeds in renewing figurative art while offering a fresh take on the visual codes of his time.

His signature

Not all of Rémi Blanchard's works are signed.

Although there are variations, here is a first example of his signature:

Expertise your property

If you own a work by Rémi Blanchard, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal by filling in our online form.

A member of our team of experts and licensed auctioneers will contact you to provide an estimate of the market value of your Blanchard-signed work.

If you are considering selling your work, our specialists will also guide you through the various alternatives available to obtain the best possible price, taking into account market trends and the specific features of each work.