Robert Combas French, b. 1957

Robert Combas, born in Lyon, is a French painter widely recognized as one of the founding figures of the Figuration Libre movement in the early 1980s, alongside Hervé Di Rosa, Rémi Blanchard, and François Boisrond. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Sète and later in Montpellier, where he developed an exuberant, colorful, and raw artistic style infused with references to pop culture, comic books, rock music, and tribal art.

Combas is known for his energetic and expressive painting, populated with lively characters, embedded texts, recurring symbols, and ornamental patterns. His work blurs the boundaries between "high art" and popular culture, embracing a free and irreverent approach that opposed the conceptual and minimalist trends of his time.

For over four decades, his work has been widely exhibited in France and abroad, including shows at the MAC Lyon, the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, and the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. His pieces are part of numerous public and private collections.