Annette Cunnac
Painter – Pastellist
Painter and pastellist Annette Cunnac draws inspiration from her surroundings. Whether traveling abroad or in her immediate environment, she captures moments of life, color harmonies, and fleeting lights.
Discover her worksThe Awakening of a Gaze
Annette Cunnac is a painter and pastellist who lives and works in Toulouse, France.
Born in Rabastens, the Tarn region, she grew up in the heart of the Tarn countryside, which nurtured her eye and artistic sensitivity from an early age.
After completing her secondary studies, she entered professional life. Without giving up her first passion for painting, she enrolled in 1982 in the evening classes of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, in the painter Pierre Darques’s studio, where she acquired solid foundation in drawing and painting, later enriched at the Académie de Dessin de Toulouse.
She pursued her professional career while continuing to develop her artistic vocation, and 2012 she devoted herself fully to painting. She continues to follow demanding artistic path guided by an aesthetic quest centered on light, nuance, and harmony.
in 1994, she presented her first solo gallery exhibition and then took part in numerous art fairs, during which she received many award.
In 2014, she was appointed Sociétaire des Artistes Français and participates in the annual Salon des Artistes Français as part of “Art en Capital” at the Grand Palais in Paris.
In 2022, the Académie du Languedoc awarded her the prestigious Renée Aspe Painting Prize for her body work. In 2023, she was welcomed as an Associate Member. In 2026, she was formally installed as an Academician, occupying seat no 26.
In 2024, the Amis de Saint-Pierre des Blancs in Rabastens (her hometown) invited her to exhibit in the church of Saint-Pierre des Blancs as part of “Terres et Patrimoine”
In 2025, the Raymond Lafage Museum in Lisle sur Tarn, a museum dedicated to graphic arts, devoted a retrospective exhibition to her pastel work, “Pastels – Between Realism and Dreamlike vision”.
Between Light and Matter
Annette Cunnac creates oil and acrylic paintings as well as pastels on paper.
She draws from both her local environment and her distant travels, finding the source of her paintings through a direct and sensitive observation of the world. She paints reality by highlighting its poetry and colors, revealing the richness of a sublimated universe. Her favorite themes are landscapes and scenes of daily life.
She works outdoors, directly engaging with the subject to capture light and color. “When I paint en plein air, I am in a state of total receptivity so that nothing distracts the eye from what matters.” Guided by shapes and hues, she produces sketches, detailed drawings, and photographs that serve as a foundation for her studio work. There begins the time for reflection and the choice of subjects before the act of painting.
She constantly seeks the “just right” tone, the delicacy of colors, and a balance between graphic lines and colored forms. Transmitting the emotion felt during the initial perception and revealing the deep character of the subject is the guiding thread of her work, opening an immediate aesthetic dialogue with the viewer.
I paint what my gaze captures and makes me feel at specific lived moments, whether it be a landscape sublimated by light or a colorful scene of life.
Sketchbooks from Afar
Her passion for travel takes her across the globe. Her art is nourished by encounters and the discovery of new cultures, which are essential to the authenticity of her creation.
During her travels, she gathers a harvest of impressions and experiences that she later transcribes into her works. She captures fleeting moments through quick sketches and photography, where figures are caught in their familiar poses.
Aline Llareus-Dinier, Art Critic, wrote in her anthology Grandes Signatures Beaux-Arts du Midi de la France (Volume I, September 2016):
Annette Cunnac is one of those travelers who, long before the invention of photography, roamed the world with a sketchbook in hand. Always in search of new sensations, she seeks to understand what allows men and women of very different cultures and religions to find common ground and share similar emotions.
Annette restores the attitudes and expressions of the people she has met and the scenery surrounding them, giving each object a symbolic rather than decorative value. One senses that at every stop, a dialogue was initiated between the observer and the subject.
Aline Llareus-Dinier
Native Lights
Enriched by her travels, she casts a renewed gaze upon Toulouse. Her pastels and oils — infused with deep humanity — reflect the vibrant colours of the city through scenes of daily life: the Garonne quays, Rue du Taur, and the lively Toulouse cafés that serve as both theatre and backdrop, glowing with warm tones.
She also finds inspiration in the soft undulations of the Tarn countryside and in its brick-built heritage, whose gentle light and warm ochres she brings to life.
