BERNARD RANCILLAC (Paris, France - 1931) "Foot", 1978. Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Measurements: 100 x 80 cm, 109 x 89 cm (frame). Bernard Rancillac was born in 1931 in Paris, raised as the eldest of five siblings. After a childhood separated from his birthplace because of the war, he returns to Bourg-la-Reine and completes his studies at the Lycée Lakanal. In 1949, under pressure from his family, he trained as a drawing teacher at the Met Penninghen workshop. In 1953 he completed his military service and returned to France to work as a teacher until 1958, when he gave up teaching. He then began his studies in printmaking at SW Hayter's Atelier 17. While he was studying, in 1961 he won the painting prize at the Paris Biennale. In 1962 he completed his studies in printmaking and it was in 1963, around the Fels Gallery, that the nucleus of the New Figuration was formed. In 1965 he held the exhibition Mythologies quotidiennes with Gassiot-Talabot and his daughter Nathalie was born. Throughout his artistic career Rancillac used an imaginary based on popular images, press photographs, comics, etc., which he used as an instrument to criticise situations in the context in which he was situated, as was the case with the Vietnam War, which he criticised through an advertisement for women's underwear. His artistic language included characters from Disney comics, politicians, jazz musicians, etc. His working method in many of his works was the projection of images onto the canvas, which he painted with synthetic, vivid and contrasting colours reminiscent of commercial prints. Other social issues were addressed by Rancillac in 1966, such as the debate surrounding the controversial legalisation of the contraceptive pill.