Armand Pierre Fernandez, better known as Arman, was born in Nice in 1928. His father owned an antique shop, which is where Arman discovered his passion and fascination for soulful things at an early age. He entered the art school in Nice to study traditional art, but left after just three years, having found the course too conservative.
His early influences included contemporary artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and Kurt Schwitters, in whose footsteps Arman followed by painting abstract motifs. However, it was not until around 1960, when he became involved in and formed the artist group “Nouveaux Réalistes” with, among others, César, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, that he found his niche and the expression which we have come to associate with him. He began experimenting with early versions of a recurring theme for him – “accumulations”, in which he explores his reality and gives new dimensions to what are already complete objects.