Renowned for his boundless creativity and unparalleled output, Armand Fernandez—known as Arman since the day a printer dropped the “d” of his name in a catalogue— was born in Nice, France, in 1928. His formative years were steeped in an environment of music, and collecting, courtesy of his father's role as an antiques dealer and amateur cellist. After pursuing art history at the École du Louvre in Paris, Arman's early artistic endeavors centered on abstract paintings inspired by Nicolas de Staël.

Along with luminaries Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely, Arman was a member of the groundbreaking Nouveau Réalisme group founded in 1960—a movement meant to redefine artistic perspectives in the face of a consumer-driven society. His own singularly diverse oeuvre includes drawings, prints, collages, and monumental public sculptures. Arman is best known for his iconic “Accumulations" series—sculptural pieces and wall- reliefs made of found objects. These works comprise strategic assemblages or arrangements of shower hoses, ladles, sofas, paint tubes, gas masks, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, statues, or, for example, a pyramid of black rotary telephones and a canvas covered with thick paint brushes loaded with paint. Often, Arman smashed, flattened, burned, sawed, or chopped these pieces, sometimes casting them in bronze, or sinking them into concrete blocks. Other series, offer more formal sequences featuring musical instruments such as violins or trumpets carefully positioned on wooden pedestals.