Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (cachets, allures d'objet) to using them as the artworks themselves. He is best known for his Accumulations and destruction/recomposition of objects.
Arman's father, Antonio Fernandez, an antiques dealer from Nice, was also an amateur artist, photographer, and cellist. From his father, Arman learned oil painting and photography. After receiving his bachelor's degree in philosophy and mathematics in 1946, Arman began studying at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice. He also studied judo at a police school in Nice, where he met Yves Klein and Claude Pascal. The trio bonded closely on a subsequent hitch-hiking tour around Europe.
Completing his studies in 1949, Arman enrolled as a student at the École du Louvre in Paris, where he concentrated on the study of archaeology and Asian art. In 1951, he became a teacher at the Bushido Kai Judo Club in Madrid, Spain. During this time he also served in the French military, completing his tour of duty as a medical orderly during the Indo-China War.
Early on, it was apparent that Arman's concept of the accumulation of vast quantities of similar objects was to remain a significant component of his art. He had originally focused more attention on his abstract paintings, considering them to be of more consequence than his early accumulations of rubber stamps. In 1962, he began welding together Accumulations of similar kinds of metal objects, such as axes.
Inspired by an exhibition for the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters in 1954, Arman began working on Cachets, his first major artistic undertaking. At his third solo exhibition held in Paris's Galerie Iris Clert in 1958, Arman showed some of his first 2D accumulations he called Cachets. These rubber stamp marks on paper and fabric proved a success and provided a change of course in his career.