Patrice Warrener: key obituary facts
Is Patrice Warrener dead? Yes. Patrice Warrener died on October 9, 2026, at age 78.
Cause of death: Patrice Warrener's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Patrice Warrener known for?
He was a French artist.
More about Patrice Warrener
Patrice Warrener, a French light artist, died October 9, 2026, aged 78.
He was best known for Chromolithe, his polychromatic illumination system, through which he brought colored light to buildings. Over the last 15 years of his career, Warrener made more than 60 Chromolithe installations in nearly a dozen countries.
His work influenced the growth of light festivals in cities with World Heritage status, connecting his architectural projects with a wider movement of public light events. Trained as a printer, Warrener began working in light shows with the French cooperative Open Light. In the early 1970s, he collaborated with English musician and electronic music pioneer Tim Blake on the Crystal Machine shows. Together they introduced laser-lighting effects, bringing projected light into a live performance setting. His work would also encompass the illumination of historic architecture. In 2016, as part of the Lumiere light festival, Warrener illuminated the front of Westminster Abbey in London, projecting colored light onto its statues. The project was a distinct example of his use of illumination on a prominent historic building. Across his career, he worked in both the performance setting of the Crystal Machine shows and the architectural context of Chromolithe installations, developing a body of work associated with the expanding light-festival movement in heritage cities.