It took a subject as distinctive as equestrian sports—and polo in particular—for Frédéric Khan’s rare talent to fully unfold in Cavalcades, his series devoted to capturing the power and poetry of movement.
How can we convey the amplitude and precision of the movements, the skill and speed, and the intimate dialogue between horse and rider?
Within this captivating dialogue, Cavalcades reveals an exquisite alchemy where shadow and light, contrast and harmony of color, spontaneous gesture and precise drawing, the flick of the brush and the smoothness of the knife, the richness and generosity of the material all come together.
“The horse carries its rider with strength and speed, but it is the rider who guides the horse.
Talent carries the artist to great heights with strength and speed, but it is the artist who masters his talent.”
— Wassily Kandinsky
Biography
Of Italian and Iranian descent, Frédéric Khan was born in Paris at the end of the 1950s.
From a very young age, he showed remarkable artistic talent, first nurtured at the Ateliers Jeunesse of the École du Louvre.
In Montparnasse, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, he honed his drawing skills and discovered his passion for painting.
He then completed his studies at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he freed his artistic gesture.
Amid the vibrant spirit of the post-’68 years, he placed his technical mastery at the service of the creative force that drives his art.
In the 1980s, he sought the light of the South and settled in Saint-Tropez. His passion for distant horizons led him to travel widely.
During the 1990s, he journeyed across the world in search of people and artistic encounters — from the shores of the Mediterranean to the far reaches of the Far East, and later to the United States — before returning to France at the dawn of the 2000s.
His Western and Eastern roots offer him a unique lens through which to question the modern world.
Beyond any anecdotal exoticism, his work is nourished by these encounters and shaped by the great continuum of art history — from prehistoric cave paintings to the most contemporary explorations.
A child of rock, he channels that same energy into his creations, where everything becomes vibration and sensation.
A subtle alchemy of color, contrast, and light, his spontaneous gestures — the whip of the brush, the blur of the spray, the richness of the material, and the variety of his techniques — awaken in us a resonance between memory and anticipation, past, present, and future.
His work offers a vision of a world in transformation, an ongoing dialogue between shadow and light, meaning and form, play and reflection.
To this day, his paintings have been acquired primarily by private collectors and art patrons.
