Born in 1902 in Bourgoin, France, Jean Dulac entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (1915-1924) where he proved to be an excellent draftsman. During his studies he won many first prizes for drawing. Above all, he perfected his skills in the sculpture class and obtained the Paris Prize, allowing him to become the workshop leader of master Paul Landowski, Grand Prix de Rome for sculpture.
He created his first paintings around 1938, self-taught, and achieved a mastery of this new discipline with great ease; during the war, while mobilized in Annecy, he painted regularly because he was unable to practice sculpture.
Dulac shows a great focus in his work on the female nude in painting, creating highly sensual, stylised life studies. The early nudes, still imbued with academic conventions, give way to an expressive abstraction of bodies treated in volumes. Alongside these, his remit was broad and varied, encompassing landscapes, still life and abstract work.
Jean Dulac was president of the Salon de la Société Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts which he founded in 1946, until his death in 1968.
