YOLANDE SALMON-DUVAL

Yolande Salmon-Duval was born in Le Mans in 1950. For several generations, the members of the family have been joyful and skillful painters and musicians. Faithful to the family tradition, Yolande has been sharing her time between the piano and painting ever since she was a child. But fantasy came later, when she became an adult and when, in 1978, she opted for naive painting.

After her A-levels, with an option in art history, she felt also much attracted by literary studies and particularly foreign languages. In 1972, at the University of Maine (Le Mans, France) she passed a Bachelor's degree in English studies, as well as a DEUG (university diploma taken after two years) in Spanish Studies and obtained a husband in the bargain.

Since then, she has been sharing her everyday life with her academic of a husband, a bunch of happy cats, among which the celebrated and delicious Leopoldine, in a large and pleasant 19th century house with her studio overlooking the garden. Yolande Salmon-Duval, whose work was on exhibit at Gallery Naifs et Primitifs in Paris from 1988 to 1997, regularly presents her paintings in France (Le Mans, Châtellerault, Niort, Béziers, Saint-Malo, Honfleur, Sarlat, Amboise, Lyon and Paris etc.) and abroad (U.S.A., Belgium, Italy, Germany); she has been awarded several prizes and medals and has been guest of honor in art fairs.