French painter, stage designer and illustrator. After working temporarily in an architect's office in Nantes, Roy moved to Paris to study at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts where he did some designs for the Universal Exhibition in 1900. He studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and the Académie Julian. He exhibited for the first time in 1906 at the Salon of the Paris Society for the Fine Arts and, in 1907 and 1908 at the Salon des Indépendants. Around 1910, Pierre Roy came into contact with Fauvism and the circle of writers who supported the current, such as Apollinaire and Max Jacob. This association exerted a significant influence over the artist, leading him to abandon his previous academic style. In 1913, he met De Chirico who also had a great influence on his work. After the First World War, his artistic style went through a fundamental change and, around 1920, Roy joined the circle of artists who would later be associated with Surrealism. He took part in the first two exhibitions of this movement, at the Pierre Gallery in 1925 and the Surréliste Gallery in 1926. In May of this year, Roy had a one-man show at the Pierre Colle Gallery and, in 1928, he took part in the exhibition Le Surrélisme existe-t-il? at the Le Sacre du Printemps Gallery, also in Paris. Nonetheless, he was not mentioned in ´Le Surréalisme et la Peinture´ by André Breton, which begun his apparent distancing from the group. He became particularly popular in the United States and took part in the first two Surrealist exhibitions held there. In 1939, he went to Hawaii which was responsible for a certain exoticism present in his work from then on. He received a medal at the Advertising Art Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1934 and first prize in another exhibition of the same type in New York in 1940. He produced numerous stage designs for the theatre and ballet and illustrated various books.
