Gérard Sendrey was born in Caudéran, France and he died in January 2022. He studied law before working as a civil servant in Bègles, outside Bourdeaux, until 1988. Sendrey began making art in the late 1960s, focusing on painting for a decade and then on drawings made with numerous crosshatched lines. His varied oeuvre includes figures splashed with many colors of paint as well as monochrome images of pared-down creatures, outlined against black backgrounds. Recent black ink drawings on white paper integrate random and deliberate marks.

Michel Thévoz, curator of the Musée de l’Art in Lausanne, Switzerland (founded by artist Jean Dubuffet), hailed the first exhibition of Sendrey’s work, in 1979 at the Galerie du Fleuve in Paris. The following year, his work was acquired by the Musée de l’Art Brut and has since entered many collections. In 1989 Sendrey founded his own organization, Site de la Création Franche, to encourage fellow self-taught artists. It is now an official museum in Bègles.