Marc Rambeau, born May 26, 1945 in Saujon, France – died June 20, 2025 Canberra.

French-Australian artist Marc Rambeau has died in Canberra following a heart attack. He was 80.

Born in Saujon in southwestern France, he studied art at the Villa Thiole and at the National School for Decorative Arts in Nice from 1961 to 1963 and later attended the Robert Boell Atelier in Toulon.

From 1968 he became a self-styled “Oceanian”, living and painting in New Caledonia, Tahiti, NZ and Chile before arriving in Sydney in 1985 and becoming an Australian citizen in 1989.

While Rambeau was by nature an international voyager, his love affair with Canberra is quite an old one.

He exhibited here in 1994 at the Alliance Française in Turner, quickly cementing strong relationships in the national capital. Rambeau eventually made the ACT his home in 2002 with his wife Lihong and their two young daughters, Emmanuelle and Yvonne, working out of a large studio in Ainslie.

When going through a rough period in 1995, a diplomat friend in Canberra had advised him, “go to China and in a month’s time you will forget everything.” It proved to be true, turning his artistic practice upside down.

There he painted, met Lihong and reinvented his work on paper in an often-dazzling mix of Western and Eastern styles, using rice-paper framed over fine Belgian linen, which was then varnished.

His Australian exhibitions often featured free-flowing work, but he always saw himself as a figurative artist drawn to the colour and life of dancers in the South Pacific, the movement of spinnakers in the 2000 America’s Cup in Auckland and even cyclists on the streets of Beijing.

Rambeau also employed Chinese-inspired calligraphic strokes in ink and pen to create impressions of Mount Ainslie and, unusually while in China, nudes.

As well as exhibiting in Paris, Canberra and the South Pacific, his work is represented in the Lane Gallery in Auckland and in the Ode to Art Gallery in Singapore. In 2009 he exhibited in Karachi, Pakistan, where he was introduced to people running a school for deaf-mute children and donated 40 of his paintings for auction.

Rambeau first exhibited in Canberra in 1994 at the Alliance Française then later at Beaver Galleries in 2013 and 2018, at Bungendore Wood Works Gallery 2021 and again at the Alliance Française in 2017 and 2020, when he showed paintings inspired by the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people’s land.

He travelled extensively within Australia in his Toyota Land Cruiser, carrying with him papers and boxes of pastels and using the boot of the car as a drawing table, rhapsodizing about the extraordinary colour and light of the Australian landscape in works such as Oodnadatta Grasses, Dusk in Gundagai and Lake Eyre Mirage.

In his latter years Rambeau, despite a more restricted capacity after suffering a stroke, continued to paint and exhibit avidly.

“At this stage of my painting journey, I have finally realised why I have chosen this place to explore, to paint and to live on. It is because of the red earth of this magical land – the strength of its spirit,” he said.

Marc Rambeau is survived by his wife Lihong and their daughters Emmanuelle and Yvonne. His funeral will be held at Norwood Park Crematorium, 3pm, July 3.