Lucien Coutaud, l'Aéroplane, 1937, Gouache

Coutaud entered the Beaux-Arts in Nîmes in 1920 and left for Paris four years later. In 1925, he was accepted at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and attended the free academies of Montparnasse. He visited the Louvre Museum and the galleries exhibiting Max Ernst, De Chirico and Paul Klee. In 1927, Charles Dullin commissions him to design the sets and costumes for a play by Aristophanes, Les Oiseaux. In 1931, he held his first painting exhibition in Paris. He worked almost exclusively in gouache, painting numerous bouquets of flowers and large esoteric compositions, and created several theater sets.

In 1937, Coutaud executed a large mural, Le mythe de Proserpine, for the Palais de la Découverte, which was destroyed in August 1944. He illustrates several poetry collections and contributes to the booklet published to mark the performances of Ubu enchaîné directed by Sylvain Itkine. Mobilized in September, he was discharged at the beginning of December, and came into contact with Paul Eluard. In 1940, he designed his first tapestry cartoon, Musique de chambre, for the Compagnie des Arts Français directed by Jacques Adnet, and in 1943, created the sets and costumes for Paul Claudel's Le Soulier de Satin staged by Jean-Louis Barrault at the Comédie- Française.

Coutaud was a founding member of the Salon de Mai, alongside Jacques Despierre, whose first edition took place in 1945, and regularly participated in the Salon d'Automne.

In 1951, he completed his illustrations for Arthur Rimbaud's Une Saison en Enfer, and took part in numerous group exhibitions in Tokyo, London, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. The Rive Gauche gallery devoted a retrospective to him, and in 1953 a new retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art in Kamakura, Japan. The following year, he took part in numerous exhibitions and presented nine paintings in the Fantastic Art section of the Venice Biennale. In 1955, he created sets and costumes for Paul Claudel's Protée, exhibited at the Sagittarius Gallery in New York and designed the sets and costumes for Charles Péguy's Jeanne d'Arc at the Comédie Française. His Paysage taurin, exhibited at the 1956 Salon de Mai, is acquired by the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris.

In 1962, he holds a one-man show at the Galerie André Weil and a retrospective at the Musée Galliera. In 1963, he travels to Japan, where he exhibits at the Nichido gallery in Tokyo. He was appointed head teacher of the etching workshop at the Beaux- Arts de Paris, a position he held until 1975.

In 1967, he was awarded the Grand Prix de peinture by the City of Paris, followed by the Grand Prix de l'Académie des Beaux-arts in 1971. His works are held at the Centre Pompidou, Musée d'art moderne de Paris, Musées des beaux-arts de Nîmes et de Lyon, Musée d'art moderne de Rio and Ohara Museum of Art among others.