Born in 1938 in Calais (Pas-de-Calais), Léopold Gest is a self-taught French artist and designer whose work lies at the intersection of sculpture, design, and functional objects. He settled in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the late 1960s, a region whose culture and landscape would have a lasting impact on his work. Drawn to the visual arts and contemporary art from an early age, he developed a unique practice rooted in a direct relationship with materials, particularly metal, which he manipulates, transforms, and patinates to reveal its expressive power.

Alongside his work as a gallery owner, Léopold Gest developed a personal body of work that took shape in the late 1960s. He began creating his first metal objects using fragments gathered from the countryside: pieces of plows, horse bits, spades, and abandoned farm tools. These elements, cut, reassembled, and sanded down according to his intuition, became lamps, candlesticks, mirrors, or sculptures. Sometimes evoking animals, sometimes imaginary machines, these assemblages close in spirit to the ready-made marked the beginning of an artistic exploration in which steel became his material of choice. 

Léopold Gest still lives in Provence, surrounded by olive trees, his sculptures, and the works of Coulentianos and Prassinos, his lifelong friends.