Learns oil painting and acquires a love for music from his father, a Sunday painter and amateur cellist.
1949
Begins to paint in a Surrealist style.
1953
Influenced by Nicholas de Staël and Serge Paliakoff, begins working in an abstract style. Collaborates with Klein on various actions, and continues to collect antiques and decorative objects. Develops and interest in African art after viewing an exhibition in Paris.
1954-1955
Sees Kurt Schwitters exhibition at Galerie Berggruen in Paris, and is particularly impressed by the artist's use of rubber stamps. Also discovers the paintings of Jackson Pollock at Studio Facchetti, Paris.
Creates his first Cachets by using ordinary rubber stamps on various materials.
1956
First solo exhibition of Cachets and abstract paintings at the Galerie du Haut-Pavé, Paris.
1957
Creates the first Allures d'objets by printing paint-covered objects directly onto canvas.
1959
Makes first sculptures - destructions, poubelles, and accumulations.
First solo exhibition held in Italy, at the Galleria Apollonaire, Milan.
1960
October 25 - fills Galerie Iris Clert with garbage, creating Le Plein ("Full-Up").
October 27 - signs a manifesto with artists of the Nouveau Réalisme and critic and art historian Pierre Restany.
Meets Larry Rivers, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns in Paris. Has his first lessons in English from Rauschenberg.
1961
Makes first colères.
July 13 - smashes furniture at Abbaye de Roseland, Nice, creating Colère de Muebles Henri II. Accumulates objects in polyester.
October - makes first visit to New York and is included in his first museum group exhibition, The Art of Assemblage, at the Museum of Modern Art. Simultaneously his first solo show in U.S. opens at Cordier-Warren Gallery, New York.
Meets Marcel Duchamp at a dinner given by artist/collector Bill Copley.
1962
Purchases a welder and begins to weld objects together in the accumulations.
1964
First solo museum exhibition opens at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Begins to create burned objects in plastic after his visit to Amsterdam.
1966
Makes first accumulations of paint tubes embedded in polyester.
February - Retrospective held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
1967
Begins an "art-industry" collaboration with Renault, the French automobile manufacturer, which continues through the 1980s.
Represents France at Expo '67 in Montreal.
1967-1968
September - Teaches painting until spring at the University of California. Los Angeles, California.
1968
Exhibits at the XXXIV Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel, Germany.
1970
Accumulates objects in concrete. Also uses raw garbage and organic materials for sculptures in plastic. Accumulates refuse from the studios of artist friends for a series of sculptures in plexiglass boxes.
Exhibits at the French Pavilion, World's Fair, Osaka, Japan.
1972
Decorated as a Chevalier de l'ordre du mérite by the president of the Republic of France.
1974
September - First museum retrospective in the U.S., Selected Works 1958-74, held at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California, and throughout the country.
1975
April 5 - Conscious Vandalism, a happening is staged at John Gibson Gallery, New York.
1976
Creates an environment at the XXXIX Venice Biennale.
1980
April-May - Creates freestanding sculptures of accumulated tools while working in Nagoya, Japan.
1981
Creates large wall pieces with tools and utensils.
1982
Summer-Fall - Completes monumental sculpture Long Term Parking, Le Montcel, Jouy-en-Josas, France.
1983
Makes large wall pieces and smaller standing sculptures with accumulations of second-hand brass instruments throughout the year.
1984
Receives commission from the Ministry of Culture, Paris, France, for a monument to the 200th anniversary of the Republic. The sculpture, A la République, is installed at the entrance to the Palais de l'Elysée, Paris, France.
Decorated as a Commandeur des arts et lettres by the Minister of Culture in Paris.
1985
The Schöner Wohnen Haus Gallery, Zurich, commissions a series of furniture sculptures, including a monument made from thirty-six antique brass beds.
Music Power, a monumental sculpture made with bronze cast bass fiddles, is installed at the Acropolis, Nice, France.
July - two bronze sculptures are unveiled at the Gare St. Lazarre, Paris, France.
Rostropovich's Tower, a monumental sculpture of sliced cello forms in bronze, is exhibited outside Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.
December 16 - Premiere performance of Maurice Ravel's L'Heure espagnole with stage design by Arman at the Paris Opera.
Designs Champagne bottle for Taittinger.
1986
February - Works on Slices of Liberty project that celebrates the monument's upcoming centennial.
July 4 - Completes a 30 foot bronze sculpture consisting of flags for a private collection in Connecticut.
Installs sculpture, Being Beauteous, outside of Tilles Hall, Long Island University.
Commissioned for design projects for Fragonard Perfume, Louis Vuitton, Porthault and Piaget.
1987
Illustrates and writes text for a children's book which is published early winter.
Begins compiling information and documentation for the publication of the first volume of his Catalogue Raisonné, scheduled for publication in Autumn of 1989.
A new 400 page book is published on Arman by La Différence, France, with text by art critic Bernard LaMarche Vadel.
Winter - Designs set and costumes for his original conception for the Paris Opera Desordres Lyriques.
December - Receives French Legion of Honor award for outstanding achievement.
Creates a sculpture entitled, Hommage a Picasso or Venus a la Guitare for the Arman/Picasso exhibition at the L'Orangerie, Geneva, Switzerland, which was later developed as a series of works called "trans sculptures."
1988
February - Installs a paintbrush environment at the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Nîmes.
Travels to China for the Marco Polo, Save the Great Wall of China project, to create a work in front of an audience entitled Beijing Quartet #1. It is subsequently placed in a Sotheby's auction to benefit the project.
Makes a fountain, approximately 9 feet high consisting of an accumulation of boat propellers in bronze.
1989
November - Awarded the medal of the Legion d'Honneur by President Francois Mitterand.
Completes a large scale sculpture entitled Millions of Miles in Chönan, South Korea, which is 65.5 feet (20 meters) high, consisting of welded rear truck axles. It is the tallest of Arman's large scale sculptures to date.
1990
Monochrome Accumulation is published by A.H. Grafik, Sweden, with a foreword by Donald Kuspit, documenting all paintings made for this project.
Musée du Dessin et de l'Estampe de Gravelines, France, introduces Arman Estempes Catalog Raisonné (published by Marvel, Paris), which documents Arman's prints and etchings from the 1950s to the present.
Cancels Restrospective Exhibition scheduled for the opening of the new Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nice, in protest of the mayor's avowed anti-Semitism and support of a right-extremist political party National Front, known for its neo-Nazi sympathies. This draws international attention, and the mayor, Jacques Médecin, resigns from public office the following fall.
1990-1991
Invents a method for cast bronze patina which resemble the look of objects that had been aged under salt water for centuries, and begins Atlantis series of sculptures.
1991
Second volume of Catalogue Raisonné documenting works from 1960 to 1962 is published.
Executed paintings of bicycles on canvas.
1993
Executed a series of paintings titled Van Gogh, Starry Night.
1994
Executed a series of Accumulations of objects in ceramic.
1995
Inauguration of monument Hope for Peace, Beirut, Lebanon.
1996
The French post office commissions an "Arman" stamp.
2000
July - First thematic retrospective, titled, "La Traversée des Objets," Emile-Hugues Foundation, Château des Villeneuve, Vence, France.
2005
Though Arman passed away in October 2005, the efforts of his wife of 34 years, Corice Canton Arman, and of the Arman P. Arman Trust, continue to ensure that his remarkable legacy - his ability to transform and elevate, his political engagement and his incisive humanism - will continue to affect and influence the world he loved so much.
2006
November 21 - Centre Pompidou, Paris, France holds a Memorial for the artist. The event was attended by over 500 guests, including such dignitaries as Madame Claude Pompidou, former First Lady of France, Catherine Grenier and Olivier Kaeppelin from the Ministry of Culture, Bruno Racine, the president of the Centre, and Alfred Pacquement, the director of the Musée national d'Art moderne.
2007
February 3 - Arman sculpture Arrête, Regarde et Ecoute (Stop, Look and Listen), is officially unveiled during the opening of the new Zuo Ing Train Station in Kaohsiung District of Taipei, ROC.
May - The French Institute Alliance Française in New York City exhibits Arman: Accumulation of Friends, a portfolio of 82 photographs by Arman for its inaugural show at a new gallery. These photographs, in both color and black and white, taken in '60s and '70s, are shown for the first time in the United States.
July 2 - Inauguration of the Arman Sculpture, Small Liberties Born out of Larger Ones, 1996. Residence of the United States Ambassador, Paris, France.
2010
A collection of lithographs have been donated to Ben Gurion University, Sde Boker, Israel, where they will be on longstanding display. A dedication ceremony was scheduled for May 2010.
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