Denis Godefroy was born in Évreux on 19 August 1949, the son of Christiane Renaux (born in 1926) and Pierre Godefroy (born in 1920). He is the eldest of five children. His father was a decorative painter and had a workshop in Évreux. A painter and music lover, he painted for his own pleasure and introduced Denis to drawing and painting techniques at an early age. From this learning, Denis Godefroy keeps the memory of his father's workshop, of the preparation of his backgrounds with Levis paint; he keeps the love of the layers that Pierre Godefroy liked to pass and to prepare ; of the sanding and of the smell of turpentine and of the Zan Blackoïd tablets.
« I am a former child. I would have liked to keep the freshness of my childhood look. I kept in my eyes the paintings my father made and I remember very well the smell of his studio and the silence of the exhibitions he showed me.
It is from all these conscious and unconscious imprints that my work has gradually been nourished. To exhibit in a school, for example, is to make this journey backwards again and to take for oneself the lessons of the children. » D.G.