Born in 1958 to an Argentine mother and a Franco-British father, Guy de Malherbe lives and works between his two studios in Paris and the Vallée du Loir. In his youth, he was strongly influenced by the work of Dalí, which he discovered as a child in Cadaqués, fascinated by the steep rocks plunging into the sea. Later, the coastline of the Costa Brava, the cliffs of Étretat in Normandy, and the glaciers of Perito Moreno in Argentina would become his favorite subjects—onto which he projects his inner world, building a highly gestural painting style, with a thick, sensual texture.
Many art historians have written about his work, including Olivier Kaeppelin, Pierre Wat, Claude Frontisi, Alain Bonfand, Olivier Delavallade, as well as the writers Franck Maubert, Patrick Cloux, and the poet Luis Mizón. Their perspectives shed light on the Surrealist lineage of his work—initially influenced by the worlds of Dalí and Buñuel—but from which he gradually distanced himself over the course of his career, retaining only a deep fascination with the mineral world. Deeply rooted in matter and in the pleasure of gesture, Guy de Malherbe’s work appears, in the words of these authors, as an intellectually dense painting practice, rich with references to art history and nourished by the subconscious.
Guy de Malherbe’s works are part of national collections (CNAP, Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and many museums have devoted solo exhibitions to his work: Musée du Mans, Musée d’Évreux, Musée de Trouville, Abbaye de l’Épau, and the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. His work has also been regularly exhibited in the United States. He is represented in Switzerland by Galerie Ditesheim-Mafféi, and in France and Belgium by Galerie La Forest Divonne.
In 2024, the Grand Manège in Vendôme held a major monographic exhibition dedicated to him, bringing together over a hundred paintings and around thirty works on paper. At the end of last year, the prestigious publishing house Skira devoted an important monograph to him, retracing his entire career, while Éditions L’Atelier Contemporain are currently working on the publication of his studio “notes,” scheduled for release this year.
