Alfred Manessier, a non-figurative French painter, played a major role in the new École de Paris and in lyrical abstraction.

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He joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Amiens, then that of Paris in 1929. He works there in particular with Roger Bissière and Robert Delaunay. As early as 1933, he exhibited his figurative and colorful compositions at various Parisian salons. From 1949, Manessier executed tapestry cartoons and stained glass windows and became one of the greatest French representatives of lyrical abstraction.

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The discovery of his faith in 1943 profoundly oriented his work by questioning spirituality in art. However, the artist has always defended himself from being a religious painter:

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“I don't believe in religious painting. It is the man who must be religious. I differentiate between the subject and the object. Thus, in Corot, there is a Christian perspective, and that is for me much more valid than all the paintings on religious themes that lack this light by Corot.”