Pop artist recast famous works

Alain Jacquet, 69, a French pop artist known for his reinterpretations of famous paintings, died Thursday of cancer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the French Embassy said in a statement.

Jacquet’s work often reflected the sensibilities of Pop Art, which emerged in Britain and the United States in the 1950s and ‘60s and drew on advertising, comics and other pieces of popular culture.

He also revisited well-known artworks from previous eras. One of his best-known paintings recasts the impressionist giant Edouard Manet’s “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,” which depicts a female nude picnicking with two fully clothed men. In Jacquet’s version, they are replaced by a gallery owner, an art critic and a painter. He also based works on two other renowned nudes, Manet’s “Olympia” and the neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ “La Source.”

Born Feb. 22, 1939, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Jacquet had his first exhibition in France in 1961. His work is held by institutions including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of American Art in Washington and the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the embassy said.