Francis Palanc left school at sixteen and joined the family business, where he learned the art of pastry making. Around the age of nineteen, he began developing a system and technique unique in the history of art. For over ten years, he created a cuneiform alphabet with which he wrote poems on his canvases.

Language and geometric forms, sometimes reminiscent of the Bauhaus, converge and merge. The letters are sexualized as masculine or feminine; the square symbolizes man, the circle woman, and the colors represent emotions and the gender of his "writing."

Palanc created some of his works using pastry techniques: he worked with a sieve, a pastry brush, and a rolling pin. The ingredients he used were shellac, then gum arabic mixed with crushed eggshells, dried egg white, sugar, caramel, and sometimes sawdust.

His work remained confidential until Jean Dubuffet discovered it through a gallery owner friend in Provence. Fascinated, Dubuffet added Francis Palanc's work to his collection and wrote a lengthy article in the journal *Art Brut*.

Palanc destroyed a large part of his work after his one and only exhibition in 1959. His rare and few poem-paintings are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Collection de l’Art Brut, and the LaM.