Armand Pierre Arman, whose birth name was Armand Fernandez, and who goes by the single name of Arman, was born in Nice, France in 1928. His father, an antique dealer and weekend painter, had moved the family from Algeria to southern France. Best known for his 'assemblages' created from found objects, Arman divided his time between France and the United States.

His first exposure to painting was through his father, who gave him art lessons. In 1946, he began his painting study at the Ecole Nationale d'Art Decoratif in Nice, where he also earned degrees in mathematics and philosophy. There he met artists Claude Pascal and Yves Klein, and together they hitchhiked across Europe. He completed his studies in Nice in 1949, ...