Born in Marseille in 1921, he trained at the École nationale des beaux-arts, where he distinguished himself as early as 1937 by winning three prizes in engraving, drawing, and architecture. Thanks to a modest scholarship, he continued his studies in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts between 1942 and 1954. His limited resources led him to favor iron, plaster, and recycled materials, a decisive choice that would permanently shape his work.

Settling in Villetaneuse, he achieved his first successes and saw his work enter the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art in 1955 with "The Fish." From the late 1940s onward, he developed an imaginary bestiary in welded iron, which earned him international recognition and numerous exhibitions in London, Venice, and São Paulo, as well as the nickname "the Benvenuto Cellini of scrap metal." A founding member of the New Realists in 1961, alongside Arman, Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Yves Klein, he simultaneously produced numerous monumental works and his famous car compressions, a radical gesture against consumer society, while his polyurethane foam Expansions, beginning in 1967, cemented his international reputation. Finally, under the patronage of the Cartier Foundation, he created some of his most monumental works.