Bruno Leprêtre — Oil painting copyist in Lyon
To copy the masters is to learn to see through their eyes before looking through your own.
— The art of copyA glimpse of the copies created in Bruno's Lyon studio, painted in oil on canvas in the tradition of the great masters. Every work shown can be commissioned as a copy in the dimensions of your choice.
Bruno Leprêtre, master copyist based in Lyon, devoted himself to painting after a full professional career, embracing retirement as a second calling. It is in copying the great masters that he found his artistic path, combining technical rigour with personal sensitivity.
From his Lyon studio, he works mainly in oil on canvas and strives to faithfully reproduce the works of the painters who have shaped art history, while keeping a figurative voice in his original creations — landscapes, portraits, and animal studies.
For him, copying is not a mere reproduction exercise: it is an intimate dialogue with the masters, a school of patience and humility where every brushstroke seeks to unlock the mystery of the original gesture. His works invite careful contemplation, revealing the beauty and complexity of a demanding art.
— Bruno Leprêtre, copyist in Lyon
A centuries-old tradition, kept alive in the great museums, where the painter's gesture converses with the soul of the masters.
Since the late 18th century, the great European museums have welcomed copyists into their galleries, easels raised and brushes in hand, sitting before the masterpieces. This living tradition bears witness to the fundamental role copying plays in the transmission of art: it is by painting the masters that one learns to understand them.
Every great artist has practised it: Delacroix copied Rubens, Manet copied Velázquez and Titian, Cézanne copied the Venetians, Degas copied the Italian primitives. Picasso himself measured his hand against Velázquez's Las Meninas more than sixty times. For them, copying was not imitating: it was understanding, dialoguing, joining a lineage.
In 2025, the « Copyists » exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz brought together a hundred contemporary artists around this practice, proving that copying remains, more than ever, a path of choice towards painterly excellence.
Copies, copying. It has been the education of nearly all the great masters.
— Eugène Delacroix, JournalEvery copy begins with a careful analysis of the original work: composition, palette, play of light and transparencies, the master's singular gestures to be unlocked.
Oil painting on canvas, respecting traditional techniques: successive layers, glazes, impasto. Several weeks, sometimes several months, for a single work.
Do you dream of a reproduction of a work that moves you? Bruno creates it to order: choice of format, framing, preliminary dialogue to fully understand your expectations.
An oil-painted copy has nothing in common with a printed reproduction. It is a work of art in its own right, alive, tactile, made to last.
To own a hand-painted copy is to welcome an artist's gesture into your home, the depth of patient work, and an object that will travel through time as the original has done.
Art copying is a fully legal practice, carried out according to precise rules inherited from museum tradition. Bruno scrupulously applies the principles in force, which clearly distinguish art copy from forgery or counterfeit:
While copying remains his chosen ground, Bruno also explores his own voice through original works: landscapes, portraits, and animal studies, where the rigour gained from the masters is woven with a personal eye.
Bruno notably trained with Christian Vibert at the Atelier des Fontaines, where he deepened his knowledge of traditional oil painting techniques and the art of copying after the great masters. This patient transmission of centuries-old craft forms the foundation of his current practice.
To learn more about this training: master copy workshop · oil painting workshop
Looking for a master copyist in Lyon to create a hand-painted copy of a work? For any custom commission, enquiry about a particular painting, or simply to discuss painting, please feel free to get in touch.
Every project is unique and begins with a preliminary discussion to fully understand your expectations: choice of the work, dimensions, framing, lead times. The studio welcomes visitors by appointment in Lyon, and I am happy to travel throughout the Lyon metropolitan area and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.