These expressionist paintings of New York, by Jean Claude Pleau are largely inspired by the famous American masters Edouard Hopper and David Hockney and from the universe of writers like Paul Auster. These paintings lead us into a bizarre  New York, as their baroque style captures the attractive image of this city. The impressive buildings, all the yellow cabs, the anonymous rambling street characters, become so familiar for us.

His painting presents a vivid and real New York, but is however sourced from his own imagination, from a city he loves and from which he draws his inspiration.

JCP was cradled from his earliest years in the world of painting. He was born on April 21, 1947 in Paris. In the 50’s and 60’s, his father always hung paintings in his well-loved French Restaurant “le café des arts”, in the elegant city of Neuilly s/Seine, near Paris.

Indeed, canvases from young unknown painters decorated the restaurant and were the great joy of this young boy, canvases which were ultimately acquired by his father and ultimately wound-up in their home.

In College, the passion of Jean Claude for drawing and the aquarelle were never at odds.

Later schooled at the “Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris” with acclaimed professors, he found his metier.

But his source of inspiration was encountered by travelling to America in the seventies, mainly to New York; fascinated by this city, its colours, its sounds and even its smells.

The universe in which these curious  characters evolve;  the multitudes of yellow cabs,  the roving ambulances, the fire-hydrants, the tall stretching buildings , the massive water-tanks on the roof-tops, makes this city an attractive and mysterious world.

New York: Real and Imaginary, canvases of J.C.P. both fascinate us and probe us.

It is in a small French village in black Périgord that JCP has his workshop-gallery for connoisseurs and international customers.

With each return trip to the United States, he adds into his paintings and drawings, from his sketches and photographs, so as to rebuild this America which fascinates him more each time, and that he always tries to discover even more of….