Michel Parmentier studied at the École des Métiers d'Art and both lived and worked in Paris, France. He is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; FRAC Bretagne, Rennes; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; Fondation La Caixa, Spain; and the François Pinault Collection, Paris. Parmentier was the subject of major retrospectives at the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris (1988) and Villa Tamaris Centre d’art, La Seyne-sur-Mer (2014).