In the late 1960s Bernède moved into a period of colourful abstraction which lasted until 1984, when he began to experiment with the almost monochrome style which has become his trademark. Inspired by oriental calligraphy as much as the example of the great American Abstract Expressionists, Bernède paints gesturally, mostly in black on a white ground. He also uses edges of colour (such as blue or brown) to emphasise and enhance his forms, like grace notes or improvisations on the main design. Improvisation is an apt term, for Bernède's mature work has much in common with music - in its pursuit of rhythm, form and flow.

Born in 1926, Georges Bernede's quest for poetry and beauty was achieved through his own human struggle. Bernede’s teenage years were marked by the hardships of the Second World War in his natal village of Monségur, a proper bastide town near Bordeaux. Whilst his father had been taken prisoner of war, his mother earned a meagre living as a seamstress. As such, Bernede was forced to start works as a carpenter’s apprentice as of 1940. Unable to afford painting materials, the young Bernede would compose scenes in his head, whilst wandering the woods, marvelling at nature, the play of light and shade and its reflections on water. His desire to become a painter was mocked by the inhabitants of Monségur, who considered art as a frivolous pastime for the wealthy. Bordeaux was notoriously known for its conservatism and its painters did not warm to Abstraction until the mid-1950s, twenty years after Abstraction became a recognized movement in Paris. Bernede’s exhibitions of work at the 1946 Salon de Mai of the Artistes Indépendants Bordelais and his 1949 showing of ‘La Bicyclette’ at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants Bordelais caused scandal and were considered nonsense.

Faced with rejection, Bernede continued to paint in solitude and rarely showed his work. Thus, Bernede did not suffer any pressure to conform to any commercial demand or intellectual expectations and had the chance to explore art freely. In his continuous search to express the poetry of Life, Bernede tried to establish an analogy to musical rhythm in his painting, thus naturally growing towards gestural painting, partnered with a monochrome palette. Whilst being deceptively subtle, Bernede’s paintings show dramatic movement and impact through the energetic application of the paint.

Bernède started painting properly in 1945, under the guidance of Mildred Bendall (1891-1977)., whom herself was a pupil of Herni Matisse Initially Bernède followed Bendall's advice to use colour as the building blocks for composition and expression. His first post-cubist canvases were exhibited at the yearly exhibitions of the Artistes Indepéndants de Bordeaux, the Group 'Sève' and the Group 'Le Regard' during the 1940s and 1950s. During 1968 -1984, Bernède progressed into colourful Abstraction. Since the mid-1980s his palette became almost monochrome. His black and white canvasses lit up by spare dots or strokes of colour, are testimony to his desire to convey timeless space, much in the manner of the composer Gyorgi Ligeti (1923-2006). Bernède himself often compares the rhythm of his paintings to music, as he continues his search into abstract expression of the essence of life. Bernède was born, lived and worked in the Bastide town of and Monségur, France until his death in 2023.