Marcel Frère was born on April 20, 1906 in Tourcoing, northern France. Even as a child, he was so passionate about drawing and painting, that his parents set up a studio for him in the attic.

At the age of 18 he entered the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” in Paris and at the same time took art history courses in the “Ecole du Louvre”.

In these early Parisian years, he became friends with the Swiss Hanhart family, with whom he was to have a lifelong friendship and in whose living rooms his paintings hung alongside those of Modigliani, Monet and other famous painters. Long, artistically stimulating trips to Italy and Spain also took place during this time.

In 1939, during the mobilization, he was sent to the Alsatian border where he was taken prisoner. Detained in an officer camp in East Prussia, he nevertheless succeeded in pursuing his artistic activity: with makeshift equipment, he painted and drew portraits of his comrades and gave them art history lessons. Seriously ill, he was released from captivity in 1943.

Back in Paris, he devoted himself entirely to his artistic work. Regular stays with friends in Auvergne, in the south of France and in Switzerland enabled him to paint landscapes intensively.

But more and more, it is still life that he prefers: stones, roots, branches, mushrooms and fruit inspire him with a very personal abstraction, going beyond the figurative painting of his youth.