By Rebecca Pikus
Music Publisher/Producer/Songwriter – Drummer – Explorer/Adventurer – Actor/Comedian – Photographer – Tour Guide – Artist/Painter & Sculptor — Robert Tahar has been living a very fulfilled & rich life so far! Handsome, sophisticated, charming & talented, — intense(!), animated — with the demeanor of Marcel Marceau!
Tahar was Born into a Jewish family in French Tunesia (N. Africa). In 1958, when he was 9-1/2 yrs old, his family moved to Paris, France, where he grew up. Being from Tunesia, where everyone plays the drums, he has always been a drummer. At age 13 & 14, he was a constant visitor to the Louvre Museum — he fell in love with Van Gogh, Old Masters, Impressionists, but especially with Picasso. His first “art purchase” was a postcard of Picasso’s early Blue Period, “Mother & Child”. At age 15, he studied for 2 years to be an Actor, and was also a comedian. At age 17, Tahar became a Music Publisher. The Tahar family, including his father & his brothers, became the largest Music Industry & Record Producers in France.
But he could not be restrained by the confines of Paris, and wanted to see the World! In his late teens, He went to Asia and India for a year. Then Tahar embarked on sailboat Expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula in the North Pole. He did his first painting, of a glacier, after visiting the Patagonia (near the South Pole) in Argentina. He then went on Scandanavian Expeditions, dog sledding in Finland, Lapland, & Greenland. Tahar then went on Safari’s to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania. In 1979 he went to Thailand, then Szechuan Province and the Great Wall in China. In 1980 he went to Tibet, and did several treks in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest & Annaturna. He also lived in monasteries & ashrams with Tibetan monks and was one of the first few people to be allowed in the Forbidden City of Ladaka.
Tahar then lived in New York City and in 1982 married an American Model. He served as Assistant Photographer to the famous photographer Peter Vaeth, and was also a Music Producer. In 1984 he moved to California for the first time, and became a Tour Guide on charters for French tourists. This endeavor is one of the loves of his life — guided tours to the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Antelope Valley, Bryce National Park, tours in Nevada, Arizona & Utah. In 1995 his tours took him to Sausalito, Ca. where he was fascinated & inspired by the paintings of a NYC artist, Elan Vital, who was exhibiting in the Hanson Gallery. He later lived in the Hollywood Hills, where he did drumming with his neighbor David Carradine.
In 2007, Tahar moved to Palm Springs, Ca. His career as an Artist — a Painter and Sculptor, began full-time then. Rich indeed is the person who can enter Tahar’s world — his home and studio in Cathedral City, Ca. where he lives with his beloved cats Lulaa and Simone. Paintings everywhere! the smell of oil paints, turpentine, linseed oil, incense. His drums, and a music collection like no other – original, rare recordings of jazz musicians, rock & roll, classical. He has painted tributes to Basquait, Prince, Miles Davis. He is completely passionate about his art, he becomes mesmerized and goes into a trance-like state, painting round the clock until a canvas is finished. He loves the words “le sublime” and “beaute”. The “wave” and the convergence of 2 points are the essence of each canvas. He is a voracious reader of books on philosophy, Buddhism, Abstract art, futurism, theology, spirituality.
“Tahar is a secret man…Color, color, color….shape will follow – and it always does, in an often times surprising way….How comes that, out of this chaos or orgasmic energy…arises such harmony, such timeless beauty….Tahar’s art is religious beyond religion, spiritual beyond spirituality, significant beyond significance, “brut” as Dubuffet described; “calligraphic” as Malraux eructed; away from fashions, schools, and tendencies…Essential – in a word.” Jean-Patrick Capdevielle
Robert Tahar, Artists Reception, Sat. Dec. 10, 5-8PM and “Masters of Abstract Art” Exhibit, opening Sat. Jan. 7, 2017, 5-8PM at REBECCA FINE ART GALLERY, 68895 Perez Rd, #7, Cathedral City, Ca. – Open Bar, Music, Amazing Art – (760) 534-5888 – Rebeccafineart.net & Roberttahar.com
