About

František Mertl, known as Franta, was born in 1930 in Třebíč, Czech Republic. He studied at the Higher School of Industrial Arts in Brno and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Professor Miloslav Holý. In 1956, during a study trip to Italy, he met Jacqueline, his future wife. Two years later, he secretly left his country through West Berlin and joined her in France. They settled in Vence, where Franta has lived and worked for over sixty years. He held his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1960 and quickly became a major representative of the New Figuration movement. His paintings, drawings, sculptures, and engravings are now part of nearly sixty major public collections worldwide.