Francis Palanc passed away in Vence (France) on April 30th 2015, at the age of eighty-six. A highly adept self-taught creator, Palanc leaves behind both a fleeting artistic oeuvre and a sophisticated metaphysical theory on signs meant to transcribe his thinking.

Francis Palenc, who died in Vence on April 30th 2015, at the age of eight-six, spent his youth living and working in the family pastry shop. The bakery adjoined the "Petite Boutique Chave," where my father sold toys and articles for artists. Seeking to evade the tedium of his everyday routine, Palenc invented a sign system with which he sought to transcribe his thinking in all its complexity. Alone in the back of the shop, he also set about creating for his own pleasure, although lacking any preparation whatsoever. Using materials found at hand, he would pound egg shell into a powder state and then color it with pigments meant for the party pastries. To paste his creation together, he used gum arabic on very fine canvasses, portraying a vision of the world brimming with fantasy. In this manner, the late fifties saw the emergence of a good number of most original and highly skilled works; these he accompanied with explanatory esoteric texts. The works were set on display in our gallery in 1959; there they attracted the attention of Jean Dubuffet. However, Francis Palanc was exceedingly wary of losing his freedom of thought: success became a troubling factor and, in a fit of anger, he not only stopped creating, but also destroyed all his work materials, including the piece on which he was toiling. His artistic contribution was thus quite fleeting. However, throughout his life he pursued research on wordage and writing, linking his efforts to a deeply mystical quest. Such an exceptional outlook makes a very special person of Francis Palanc—he had the warm personality of those who hail from southern France, but harbored great complexity: he spent a lifetime looking for a sign theory (in what he termed "fermitude" i.e. closing himself off, and "ouvertitude" i.e. opening himself up) that would lend his life a sense.

Pierre Chave