Bernard Frize studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence and then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier. He made a name for himself in the late 1970s with his all-over paintings, of which the 1977 work shown below is one of the earliest examples. His work is systematic, and the gesture could almost seem automatic or automated. The artist becomes a craftsman, and the way he paints, the process of creating the work, is ultimately as important as the finished painting. But however determined it may be, the process is not infallible, and the artist leaves room for chance in his works. Heaps of paint, mixtures of colours in the interstices, impromptu overflows bring life and vibrations to the paintings. Although the artist does not seek affect or poetry, his works nonetheless invite contemplation.
Bernard Frize has had major monographic exhibitions in museums, notably in 1988 and 2003 at the Musées d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and at the Centre Pompidou in 2019. His works are included in the permanent collections of international museums such as the Tate Modern in London, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Museo Rein Sofia in Madrid, the National Museum of Art in Osaka and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
He recently announced that he will be represented by the Marianne Goodman gallery, which will devote a solo exhibition to him in Los Angeles at the end of 2024.