French painter who lived in Paris after 1916. In his youth, he admired the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald and Albrecht Dürer who had a strong influence on his work in the thirties and forties. Between 1929 and 1932, he studied at the Académie Scandinave and, after 1930, he had his works shown regularly at the Salons d' Automne and Salons des Tuileries. In 1947, he received the Prix National des Arts. After the Second World War, Gruber started painting landscapes in André Breton's style with a palette of more delicate colours. In 1949, he had his first retrospective exhibition at the 60th Salon des Indépendants and, in 1959, another was organised by the Tate Gallery, in London. His compositions, in a fantastic realist style, had a great influence on the works of Bernard Buffet and Alberto Giacometti.