Tag: paris

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Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)

Georges Mathieu was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in 1921. An autodidactic artist and theorist, he embarked on his creative journey in 1942. He traversed the globe, creating masterpieces in Japan, the USA, Brazil, Argentina, and the Middle East, but predominantly lived and produced his opuses in the Parisian region of France, where he passed away in 2012.

Credited with spearheading the Lyrical Abstraction movement and the larger trend of Informalism in post-World War II Paris, Georges Mathieu pioneered a style of gestural abstraction that verged on performance art. A renowned provocateur, he dazzled audiences with his energetic approach, prioritizing speed, rejecting references, and entering a state of ecstasy while creating. Often working in front of cameras, his pieces were exhibited around the world, with his large-scale compositions achieved through the use of long brushes and direct application of paint from tubes onto the canvas. The immediacy and rapid execution of these techniques empowered him to freely express his vision. He brought a newfound liberty to the creative act and gave rise to a fresh style, a unique blend of esoteric symbols, calligraphy, and raw vigor. The titles of his pieces, infused with historical, musical, and geographical allusions, add a sophisticated yet unconventional poetic quality.

Mathieu’s work has been the subject of numerous retrospectives and can be found in over eighty museums and permanent public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Kunstmuseum Basel; Kunsthaus Zürich; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Tate, London.

www.ftn-books.com has several Mathieu titles now available.

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André Masson (1896-1987)

French painter, sculptor, illustrator, designer, and writer, born in Baragny (Oise). He spent most of his youth in Brussels, working as a pattern designer in an embroidery studio and also studying at the Acadu00e9mie des Beaux-Arts. He then moved to Paris and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1912 to 1914. He served in the French army from 1914 to 1919 and was seriously wounded. From 1919 to 1922 he lived in the south of France before returning to Paris, where he met Gris and Derain, and later Miru00f3 and Breton. In 1923, he held his first solo exhibition at Galerie Simon in Paris. He painted forests, card players, still lifes, and later experimented with automatic drawing. He participated in the Surrealist movement from 1924 to 1929. In addition to his sand paintings, he also created other works that explore the effects of chance, such as paintings depicting the transformation of animal and human forms, with an emphasis on violence and eroticism, and themes such as germination, combat, and slaughter. did. He lived in Spain from 1934 to 1936. He painted bullfights and Spanish mythology. From 1941 to 1945, he lived in exile in the United States in New Preston, Connecticut, where he created work inspired by the primal forces of nature. He returned to France in 1945 and in 1947 he settled in Provence. He painted landscape themes such as mountains and waterfalls for several years, after which he created several almost completely abstract paintings. His work also includes theater sets and costumes, book illustrations, and a series of small sculptures. He has written various books, including 1971’s  Mythologie d’Andre Masson.

www.ftn-books.com has several Masson titles available

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Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

I remember the year i was living in Paris to be filled with visiting museums. One of the first I visited was the Moreau Muzeum. I really do not know if it still the same venue. but I remember that I was impressed , pulling out large panels from the walls , filled with canvasses. Together with the Jeu de Paume and the Roding museum these are the museums I still remember very well and I was reminded of that visit when I listed the Stadsgalerij Heerlen catalog on Moreau, which is now available at www.ftn-books.com

Gustave Moreau, the French artist, gained his reputation as a painter of symbolic allegories. It was in 1864 at the Salon in Paris that Gustave Moreau first made a breakthrough with the painting ‘Oedipus and the Sphinx’. His most important works include ‘Salomé’ and ‘Saint Sebastian and the angels’.

Education
Born on April 6, 1826, in Paris, Gustave Moreau studied at the art academy in Paris and subsequently under Théodore Chassériau, a pupil of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose work is considered part of the romanticism movement.

Italy
Gustave Moreau made his debut at the Salon in Paris in 1852 with ‘Pieta Plaza’. This work clearly showed the influence of Théodore Chassériau and Eugène Delacroix. From 1857 to 1860, Moreau worked in Italy, where he studied the work of Andrea Mantegna, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Michelangelo. In 1881, he was commissioned to create illustrations for a collection of fables by Jean de la Fontaine. Moreau spent five years working on this project.

Mythology and Bible
Gustave Moreau painted a large series of artworks based on stories from mythology and the Bible. Towards the end of his life, he became a teacher at the art academy in Paris. Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, and Georges Rouault were all students of Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts.

Gustave Moreau passed away on April 18, 1898, in Paris. In his will, he left his house and studio along with all the artworks present there to the French state. His residence on Rue de La Rochefoucauld was opened to the public in 1903. The Musée Gustave-Moreau exhibits significant works by Gustave Moreau, such as ‘Jupiter and Semele’ (1895), ‘The Chimeras’ (1884), and ‘The Return of the Argonauts’ (1891-1897).

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Bernard Buffet ( continued)

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Readers will notice this second blog on Bernard Buffet. Buffet was a well known painter in the late Fifties and Early Sixties, but became out of fashion by the end of that decade. But lately there is a new interest in this painter and i can explain why. HIs gallery , galerie Garnier stayed with him during his career and never lost faith and secondly…..his way of painting in series was a way of producing a large number of paintings and i must say not all are of interest and have enough quality to convince, but there is one quality they have in common. These paintings have a style of their own. The Buffet style is there and it really is a style Buffet developed by himself. This makes these paintings stand out and the truly great ones are paintings one must admire. Perhaps Buffet is not the artist who has rose to absolute fame lije Picasso or Pollock. But his art is still there and with this art Buffet is a name which deserves a place in art history. www.ftn-books.com has added some galerie Garnier exhibtion catalogues and has collected a nice series of exhibition catalogues by Garnier which are still available.

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10 great and iconic buildings, no. 6

This list is invented to make some quick and easy blogs for this month filled with festivities. I chose these specific buildings because i think they belong to the most important from all buildings realized in the last 100 years.

So here is no.6. the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier

Villa Savoye

No…., this is not a contemporary house, but one of the first buildings finished in 1931 where Le Corbusier tried to invent a new architecture.

The five points of a new architecture. Formulated by Le Corbusier in 1927 as the fundamental principles of the Modern movement, the five points advocate reinforced concrete for constructing the pilotis, roof garden, open plan design, horizontal windows and free design of the façade – all applied in the design of the Villa Savoye.
 
The architect. Swiss-born, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), known as Le Corbusier, was part of the Parisian avant-garde. He was a founding member of the International Congress on Modern Architecture (or CIAM), launched in 1928. The Villa is now a museum and can be visited.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice publications on Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier
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    Paul César Helleu (1859-1927)

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    Paul César Helleu was a close and life-long friend of Sargent. According to Stanley Olson, John Singer Sargent bought a pastel from Helleu. “They were constant companions, going everywhere together, having their meals together, seeing each other every day. . .” In a letter to his daughter, Paulette, in December 1922 Helleu wrote, “J’ai voulu faire photographier Sargent qui à été pour moi, tout au long de ma vie, plus qu’un père.”

    During the summer of 1889, Sargent had a number of guests to stay at his house at Fladbury near Pershore, including Vernon Lee, Ansttruther Thomson, Flora Priestly, and Paul and Alice Helleu. Helleu’s intimate portrait of his wife at Fladbury was painted in that summer when both he and especially Sargent, were experimenting in Impressionism. Sargent completed among others, Two Girls with Parasols at Fladbury, Fishing, Two Girls in a Punt, A Boating Party, and probably the best know of the Fladbury pictures, Paul Helleu Sketching with His Wife (now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York).

    In Patricia Hill’s book John Singer Sargent (New York, 1987), William H. Gerdts writes in his essay entitled “The Arch Apostle of the Dab-and-spot School, John Singer Sargent as an Impressionist”, p. 131: “Finally, Paul Helleu Sketching must be seen as a further step in Sargent’s development of the theme of out-door- painting. Helleu’s canvas is turned away from the spectator, just as it had been in Dennis Bunker Painting.  But whereas Bunker was shown ruminating, away from his easel, Paul César Helleu is busily at work, and presumably confidently so. The subject he paints is of no concern nor does the spectator have a view of the scene which might be serving Helleu for his subject. What is certain is that it is an outdoor view, immediately recorded. Moreover, Helleu, like Sargent, was first and foremost a portrait painter, and by definition a portraitist of studio conceptions. Thus, Sargent presents Helleu as a convert to the new method, exploring new thematic interests. And it must be noted that Helleu is depicted doing exactly what Sargent was doing in his picture – painting out-of-doors. Helleu therefore becomes, in a sense, a surrogate Sargent himself, both men established artists in one tradition, sailing off into what was for them relatively uncharted waters.”

    www.ftn-books.com has the 1974 Knoedler /New York catalogue available.

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    Stephen Gilbert ( 1910-2007)

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    Stephen Gilbert (right, together with Constant)

    Stephen Gilbert (15 January 1910 – 12 January 2007) was a painter and sculptor from Scotland. He was one of the few British artists fully to embrace the avant garde movement in Paris in the 1950s.

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    At one time he even was considered to be one of the members of the COBRA mouvement, but now, some 60 years after COBRA most critics think Gilbert knew the Cobra artists but do not consider him to be one them. Still his paintings and drawings deserve to be appreciated. His almost child like works are close to Cobra, but some of his more abstract works are typical for the end of the Fifties.  It really depends upon the work. Some are great art and others are far from that qualification.  The galerie 1900-2000 tried to push his works into the art market in 1987 with a special Stephen Gilbert exhibition ( catalogue avaiable at www.ftn-books.com), but was not successfull. If you like his works, the works by Stephen Gilbert cab be found at smaller auction houses for still reasonable prices than the great CObra names fetch for thier art.

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    Eugene de Kermadec (1899-1976)

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    There is not much information to be found on this french artist, but he was part of the younger generation supported by D.H. Kahnweiler / the Galerie Louise Leiris.

    Eugène de Kermadec was born in Paris in 1899. His father, a teacher, was from Guadeloupe, and Eugène spent his childhood there. Returning to Paris in 1915, he trained in sculpture at the Artc Décoratifs, and in drawing at the Beaux-Arts. In 1920, Kermadec became a friend of Soutine’s who gave him several pictures, Modigliani and Desnos were also among his friends. He showed at the Paris Salon des Indépendants in 1920, and in 1927 became one of the Kahnweiller’s regular artists.
    The Simon Gallery in Paris showed his work in 1929, but he mainly showed at the Leiris gallery, with exhibits in 1946, 1957, 1973, 1977. Many shows of his work were held abroad as well : Berlin 1929, Tokyo 1933, Toronto 1949, Stuttgart 1960. He was also well known as a tennisman, later becoming an international Tennis umpire. Another of his friend was Francis Ponge whose book “le verre d’eau” he illustrated with lithographs in 1949, of the 110 copies printed, not a single one is to be found today. Eugène de Kermadec died in 1976

    I like his art…. it is playfull, filles with color and the abstraction feels far more contemporary than the late Fifties in which his art became well known through the presentations at the galerie Leiris. www.ftn-books.com has a galerie Louise Leiris catalogue from 1957 available.

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    Yasse Tabuchi (1921-2009)

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    Yasse Tabuchi is a Japanse artist born in Yasukazu Tabuchi on May 20, 1921 in the perfecture of Fukuoka and died on November 24, 2009 (at age 88) in Vauhallan, south Paris. He studied art history at the University of Arts of Tokyo from 1946 to 1951.

    Watercolorist, engraver on copper, lithographer and ceramist, Yasse Tabuchi’s paintings belongs to the same line than that of the group of painters called CoBrA, which practiced a lyrical form of abstraction after the war.

    He worked in France from 1951 until his death, his Japanase origins and his studies remained a big influence in his work all throughtout his career, which explains why we repeatedly find motifs of flowers, leaves and rainbow’s prisms made of white spots which he calls “Monads”. He uses in a regular way the gold leaf or the diptych shape.

    His work has been exhibited numerous times in solo and group exhibitions in France, Japan, Belgium and some of his pieces are part of collections in museums such as the one at the National Museum of Modern Art of Kyoto, Japan or at the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris.

    www.ftn-books.com has 2 galerie Ariel publications available.

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    Bengt Lindström (1925-2008)

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    Bengt Karl Erik Lindström was a Swedish artist. Lindström was one of Sweden’s best known contemporary artists with a characteristic style of distinct colors, often including contorted faces.

    and this is where the item i now can offer comes in. It is the gallery poster for his 1970 Ariel exhibition. truly a contorted face and now available at www.ftn-books.com

     

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    Lindström was born in 1925 at Storsjö kapell, Härjedalen, Sweden. In 1944, he moved to Stockholm to study under the Swedish painter Isaac Grünewald. In 1948, he moved to Paris, where he studied under the French painters André Lhote and Fernand Léger. Lindström was influenced by the paintings of COBRA artist Karel Appel.

    He remained in France at Savigny sur Orge for the rest of his artistic career. He had two children Mariana and Alexandre. Lindström died in 2008 in Sundsvall, Sweden.

    Lindström is probably best known for his outdoor decorations, such as mural paintings and colorful sculptures. One of his most famous sculptures is the massive Y-sculpture at Midlanda Airport north of Sundsvall, Sweden.