Jean Axatard was born in 1931 in a small village in the south of France. Very little is known about his upbringing and artistic education but in his later life he is recorded as working as a tailor in the village where he grew up. His many paintings detail the everyday happenings of village life in France and they can be seen as a reflection of the artists’ own life. Axatard had a unique ability to cast an imaginative spell over ordinary, everyday events, with lively vignettes of interactions between characters portrayed in bold colours. He was particularly attracted by the freshness of village life and its humour, which he paints with great simplicity and tranquility that is often likened to nostalgia. The style of his paintings, with characters interacting with each other, their surroundings and nature has in the past been likened to the a more innocent interpretation of the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and some have also noticed the similarity with the simplicity of Axatard’s work and that of Laurence Stephen Lowry. His work is widely collected and enjoyed by his many followers.