A self-taught artist born in Yerres, Michèle Destarac was just 20 when she showed her work for the 1st time at the 4th Paris Biennial in 1964. The precocious quality and maturity of her work soon brought her to the attention of Jean Pollak, director of the prestigious Ariel gallery.
Pollak took her on as a contract artist in 1969, giving her the opportunity - unhoped-for for an artist of her age - to rub shoulders with some of the most prominent figures on the international art scene: Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, Pierre Alechinsky, Jacques Doucet, Olivier Debré...
In the mid-70s, Michèle Destarac began exporting her work, as her reputation grew. First to Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway), where she received such a warm welcome from the public that she had almost 20 solo exhibitions there between 1976 and 1996; then, in the early 80s, to the United States, where two New York galleries (Art prospect in 1983 and Denise Cadé in 1984) introduced her work to American art lovers.
Over the past four decades, Michèle Destarac has taken part in a large number of group exhibitions (her paintings have been shown alongside those of Tapiés, Tal Coat, Marfaing, Chrisoforou, Michaux, Lindström...), as well as many international contemporary art fairs: FIAC (where Galerie Ariel organized two “one-man shows” for her in 1987 and 1993), Art Fair Stockholm, Réalités Nouvelles, ST'ART Strasbourg...
Michèle Destarac's work can be found in several public collections: Musée National d'Art Moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Musée de la ville de Vitry-sur Marne, Burden Collection & Carter Burden Collection (New York), Art Gallery & Technic University of Trondheim (Norway)...
The artist is currently represented in France by Galerie des Tuiliers (Lyon) and Galerie Le Domaine Perdu (Meyrals, Dordogne).
Since 2006, her work has also been regularly shown in Spain by the Alicante-based Galerie Italia.
Solo exhibitions at Galerie des Tuiliers in 2008, 2011 and 2014.