Frédéric Pardo

Frédéric Pardo was born in February 1944.

His father, Roland Pardo, was an antique dealer specialized in 18th century art and had opened the Pardo Gallery at Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Frédéric Pardo was the godchild of Jean-Paul Sartre and Madeleine Malraux. His mother was a friend of the sisters Beauvoir. He was also known for his dandyism and for being one of the first in Paris to wear long hair.

He met Tina Aumont circa March/April 1966 while she was still married to Christian Marquand. Soon after she had fallen for and moved in with him. Many friends believed that Tina Aumont and Frédéric Pardo were spiritual soulmates and their relationship was often remarked upon as one of intense closeness, characterised by private jokes, shared interests and grand passion. Their apartment in Paris was widely adored, both for its highly unusual décor (a combination of their exotic tastes) and for the like-minded people they drew to them. The circle that gravitated to Tina and Frédéric’s Paris apartment included visitors from Warhol’s Factory, London friends and the rebel caravan of Parisian actors and musicians. Evenings at the apartment would often include visits from Pierre Clémenti, Zouzou, Anita Pallenerg... Musician Valérie Lagrange said “They lived in the first psychedelic apartment I’d ever seen, with black lights, Moroccan fabrics and cushions. They lived on the carpets: no table or chairs, Oriental-style. And Tina made some excellent Tagines!..Tina and Frédéric lived the life of a couple who were really together as one.”

At that time he was part of The Zanzibar group, a collective of avant-garde French filmmakers and artists active from 1968 to 1970. The group was financed by Sylvina Boissonnas and included Philippe Garrel, Jackie Raynal, Pierre Clémenti, Daniel Pommereulle, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Frédéric Pardo, Tina Aumont, André Weinfeld, Serge Bard, Zouzou & Nico among others. Productions were sparse: directors shot without scripts and actors were typically not paid for their work. The group shot on expensive 35 mm film. Some of the films they did were: Visa de Censure Nº X by Pierre Clémenti (1967), Le Révélateur by Philippe Garrel (1968), Home movie autour du lit de la vierge by Frédéric Pardo (1968), La révolution n'est qu'un début, continuons by Pierre Clémenti (1968), Le Lit de la Vierge by Philippe Garrel (1969).

By 1972 Tina had split with Pardo after leaving him to do a trip to Bali on his own. He waited for her to turn up there and join him, and she never did, which for him marked the end of the trust they had shared.

Pardo nevertheless exhibited once, in 1975, at the Galerie de Seine. And if he did not sell much, it was on this occasion that he met one of his greatest admirers. Passing by chance in front of the gallery, François Mitterrand falls swoon in front of a portrait of Daniel Pommereulle. The latter is portrayed as a kind of mythological hero, aboard a frail boat, rowing half naked on a raging sea, with, inlaid, a second image of the artist, a monkey on the shoulder (the animal personifying heroin). Mitterrand wants his own portrait, in the same vein. It will be done two years later: the canvas shows it, overlooking a seascape light blue, in the prime of life, charming look, tanned complexion, passing a hand in the hair, with two owls to its sides and then roses of all colors. The Socialist Senator looks like a singer of variety, once elected, it is to Pardo that he entrusted the task of making his official portrait. This painting, delivered to the Elysee in 1983, however, will never be shown: the president poses, stiff and severe, pursed lips, the yellow complexion as mummified already by power and disease. Pardo’s friends remember that the setting in the closet of his work affected him deeply - to the point that he stopped a time to paint on canvas, starting to colorize a lot of postcards acquired during a sale of the collection of Michel Simon, at Drouot’s. Portraits of Moroccan women, “a deluge of harems of prepubescent naked girls and palm trees,” he says in an interview with Alain Pacadis, his accomplice at the Palace, where also reveals the passion that Pardo nourished for the first time. “Orient, in a spirit of very late romanticism”.

Frédéric Pardo passed away on December 19, 2005, he was 61.