Hugues de Montalembert is a painter. He is also blind.

Montalembert was born in Normandy, into an affluent family that expected him to follow tradition and become a banker or join the military. But young Hugues had other ideas and decided to leave home and live abroad, making documentaries and occasionally selling his paintings. He trudged through the world, living in more countries than most people visit in their lifetime.

While living in New York, in 1978, Montalembert’s home was broken into by two robbers who were looking for money. Apparently not content with what they found, the robbers stripped him, beat him, and threatened to stab him before throwing what felt like hot liquid on his face, which turned out to be base paint remover. The solution burned his retinas so that he could never see again. Doctors sealed his fate by stitching his eyelids closed. The attackers were never found.

Eighteen months after the incident, Montalembert decided to roam the world once more, alone. He couldn’t let anyone in on his plans, lest they try to stop him. Along the way, he would force his mind to see great visions such as the fjord of Ilulissat in Greenland. “Of course I didn’t see it,” wrote Montalembert in his diaries, “but the image is so strong that it is very difficult for me to believe that I did not… On the bank of the fjord of Ilulissat, I created my own vision.”
The painter has since been filling canvasses with paintings from memory. He has also written his memoirs in a book called Invisible, and starred in a documentary by Gary Tarn called Black Sun, which he also wrote.

“My ability to create images absolutely must not atrophy. I must remain capable of bringing back the world I looked at intensely for 35 years,” says Montalembert in his memoirs.

Many people live through adversity, but few are able to thrive and even be inspired by it. Hugues de Montalembert is one of those few.
View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about the Arts and Culture.