Paul Rebeyrolle was born in 1926 in Eymoutiers, France. At the age of five he suffered from a disease which immobilized him completely and it was his parents, Jean Rebeyrolle and Marie Ensergueix, teachers, who taught him to read and write. He also learns to draw.
In 1937 the family moved to Limoges where he did his secondary studies at the Gay-Lussac high school. In 1944, he passed his baccalaureate in philosophy and in October of this year, at the age of 18, went up to Paris by “the first train of the Liberation”. Paul Rebeyrolle has known for a long time that he wants to become a painter. From his adolescence in Limousin, he retained a passion for nature and the imperious feeling that the conquest of freedom was an absolute necessity.
In 1947, he met Bernard Lorjou in Montmartre and, at his invitation, participated in the exhibitions of “L’Homme-Témoin” alongside André Minaux, Bernard Buffet, Simone Dat (his first wife), among others. They defend a return to realism to break with the trends of abstract painting. In 1948, Rebeyrolle decorates the Abattoirs de la Villette, and takes part in the Salon for children under 30.
In 1951 he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Drouant-David and the first monograph published by the Presses Littéraires de France. In 1959, at the age of 33, Paul Rebeyrolle won the First Prize at the first Paris Biennale with the monumental painting Planchemouton. In 1963 Rebeyrolle left Paris and settled in the countryside in the Aube to work and live there with Papou, who would become his wife in 1967. In 1964, he exhibited in New York a series of landscapes, animals and nudes at the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery.
In 1967, his first exhibition took place at the Maeght gallery in Paris where he presented a set of paintings, most of which had the theme of the Painter’s Instruments. These canvases materialize with more audacity and mastery the evolution started two years ago and in which the role of the material is further accentuated. Rebeyrolle is invited to Cuba with other artists, and participates in the development of a collective work.
