Born in 1938 in Arles in France, Doutreleau from an early age came under the influence of the community of artists in Arles. Whilst his family were persuading him to continue the family tradition of joining the legal profession he was gradually becoming aware of his true vocation as an artist.
Without formal training he was obliged to take on a number of menial part-time jobs to support himself. His talent was soon noticed and his work was shown for the first time in Arles in 1956. This led to other contacts first in Marseilles and then to Paris where the prestigious Galerie de Paris took him on in 1964 and showed his work regularly. Other shows including Dallas in 1966 soon followed.
Early experiments in printmaking in the early 1970s were followed by a number of shows in America and France, Belgium and Brazil.
In later years he spent more time on lithography which was met with considerable success. His prints are very distinctive - the reflections of light on water and the wide open spaces of the region so familiar to him.