AutoBioGraphy & Personality Childhood First problems James Eddie encounter Personal Experience My Genealogy
1966	I was born in Paris 8, on a 23rd of January at 4:30 PM. So, I am Aquarius, Cancer ascendant. Childhood During my childhood, instead of doing the classical sand castles, I enjoyed to spend my free time in the garden at building cities with mud. I was also doing objects and jars inspired from antic Greek jars for which I was quite fascinated. I was used to dry my muds to the sun before painting them. Doing so, I was interested to reproduce the finish of the Greek jars. But after a while, I was more interested by the painting itself. So to make it easier, I decided to paint over flat dried surfaces of mud. I mostly copied portraits with water-colour. Once finished and dried, I waxed and polished them over and over like shoes. All these experiments got lost. After a while, I swapped my dried mud supports for Canson paper and kept on doing copies with gouache.
1968
1969
1970	First problems Around my 17, and after a school tour to the Louvres where I had never been before, I got very impressed by the master pieces and decided that I wanted identical paintings in my house. As I could not afford them, I decided that I will do them myself and got some oil painting material and went back on copying. My family was surprised, so did I. I then understood that my destiny was to be a painter. But since that time my family became very hostile. I then had to struggle to accomplish my destiny. That explain why some of my work is not finished and does not represent all what I should have been doing in a healthy situation.
1971
1979	James Eddie encounter Around 1969, I went to Spain for a linguistic holiday. I was hosted by the South African painter, James Eddie and his wife Celia, to perfect my English. Besides the linguistic aspect and the enjoyment of the sea, I had the chance to relate with a painter of exception who became one of my best friends. Eddie's home was filled up with a very nice private painting collection. But the most important was that James was doing fabulous paintings in Egg Tempera. Nevertheless, I was myself keeping on my oil paintings. James and Celia moved back to Cape Town where I went visiting them for a couple of month. As I was painting in oil, I had so much asthma because of turpentine fumes, that I had no choice to switch technique. I then got on to my first Egg Tempera done in 1979 in Cape Town under James acknowledgement. Since then and thanks to James, Egg Tempera became my favourite Medium. Also, at that time, James did my portrait in drawing. I kept visiting James and Celia until recently. As soon as I could I designed James's web site in recognition to his help but also to honour his rare talent which had to be shown. Also, James inspired me to create "Egg Tempera Fine Art" dedicated to the international revival of Egg Tempera.

My portrait by James Eddie, Capetown 1979	Visiting Celia and James Eddie in their home around 1994 James is my highly regarded friend and Egg Tempera instructor.
Painting in my Studio Beaulieu-sur-Mer in 1987	Personal Experience I got very disappointed by Art School education, specially in France, and as I didn't feet in the official Art, I couldn't get any teaching job into the French system. Even so I got two Artistic diplomas, they do not mean much to me. I mostly learned painting by myself doing copies of different classical painters. Being born in Paris and living there for quite a long time, I was a regular of the Louvre. I progressively free myself and became an adept of surrealism. Since my childhood I was quite sensitive to spiritual world and got involved with extra sensorial experiences. Sometime, I keep a record of my dreams. Then, I dive into a mental reality becoming as real as our material world. I believe that painting, like any other artistic activity, is a good tool for personal evolution as it allows one to plant steps in his life. Because of its mental process, it acts as a therapy maintaining harmony between the self and the dimensions of the Universe. I like Arts, but for me the most important one is the creation taking place under our eyes since thousands of years.
If I had a magic stick in my hands, like most people I would turn that world into the paradise it should be. As human we can only bring our personal stone to that reconstruction. Personally, I would like to contribute in bringing some relief to suffering artists. Often misunderstood by their family and society, Artists end up unable to produce their art and accomplish their destiny as it happened to me.

Hugues Delbergue