Biography

Born in 1958 (Byblos, Lebanon), Robert Bared has been living in Paris since the age of 17. 

After attending the Jesuit school in Lebanon (Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour), he came to Paris for his higher education, which he received at Paris-Sorbonne University: classics, modern literature, history, philosophy, aesthetics, art history. His doctoral thesis on "Rhétorique dans les Fables de La Fontaine" led to the publication of a study on that poet (La Fontaine, Seuil, 1995).

He began his active life as a teacher of French and Latin (École Active Bilingue), before turning to publishing, where he held various positions, including encyclopedia editor and lexicographer (Hachette), editorial collaborator and rewriter (Terrail, Robert Laffont, Max Milo, XO Éditions, RMN). Over the past fifteen years, he has devoted most of his time to writing and photography, centering his attention on the artistic image, its status and powers.

On the one hand, literary works: La Peinture représentée (with Natacha Pernac, Hazan, 2013) on painting in abyss, the art of the painter’s signature and the manifestations of the artist in the field of representation; Le Livre dans la peinture (prefaced by Pascal Quignard, Citadelles et Mazenod, 2015), on readers in paintings and the challenges of pictorial reading; L’Art et le nombre (2021, Hazan), which explores the aesthetic and symbolic presence of the first nine numbers in all the arts. 

On the other hand, a photographic quest characterised by a predilection for urban views and scenes: Paris metamorphosed by rain (Rain Painting); fanciful fictions around streetlamps that are lit in broad daylight, due to the sun; Street Photography sometimes taking up the themes of his writings (reading, museums, lovers, numbers). His first solo exhibition dates from 2011 (Italy). Today, he collaborates with Christophe Boïcos in Paris (Chris Boïcos Fine arts), and in Asia with Myeong-Hee Kim (curator of the Parisian gallery Beauté du Matin Calme).

Favorite pictures