Arman, born Armand Fernandez on November 17, 1928 in Nice and died in New York on October 22, 2005, was a French painter, sculptor and visual artist, famous for his "accumulations". He was one of the first to use manufactured objects, which he saw as extensions of the human form, directly as pictorial matter.

The only son of a Spanish-born furniture and antiques dealer, young Armand showed an early aptitude for drawing and painting. After his baccalauréat, he studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Nice, then at the Ecole du Louvre. He met Yves Klein and Claude Pascal at the judo school they attended in Nice in 1947.

At the end of 1957, Arman, who signs his works with his first name in homage to Van Gogh, decides to abandon the "d" in Armand and formalizes his signature as an artist, in 1958, on the occasion of an exhibition at Iris Clert.

Along with Yves Klein, Arman became one of the founding members of the Nouveaux Réalistes group, alongside François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Jacques Villeglé,

From 1961 onwards, Arman developed his career in New York, where he lived and worked half the time, alternating with his life in Nice until 1967, then in Vence until his death in 2005.