拍品專文
To be included in the forthcoming Jean Fautrier Catalogue Raisonné, being prepared by Marie-José Lefort, Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris.
Few paintings so clearly demonstrate the precise moment at which an artist reached his seminal style as Fautrier's monumental Nu Couché. We are grateful to Michel Ragon, acclaimed art historian, critic and author of one of the first major monographs on Fautrier, who agreed to write the following text on this work in order to highlight its crucial importance:
"As a key transitional picture, Nu Couché is of historical significance both to Fautrier's work and to the history of European art. It is the last figurative picture of Fautrier's expressionist period as well as the first picture of what has been called "L'informel".
Executed right before the famous Otages (1943) and the Nus (1945) paintings, Nu Couché represents a still recognisable head with its morphology intact, enclosed by the round curves of an arm; an oval-shaped nude in a position of abandon that Fautrier will often replicate. Although unrealistic in the sense that the poetry of the forms seems exaggerated, Nu Couché is at the same time very naturalistic in the way that the dark silhouette blends into the space and is charged with organic force and veiled eroticism. These are major recurring themes in Fautrier's art.
Nu Couché is filled with emotions that foreshadow Fautrier's future and commemorate the artist's past. One could say that it is his first truly personal and innovative painting: with its heavy layers of paint; its subtle draughtsmanship that is at odds with the thick painted surface; its technique of paper laid down on canvas, which enables the artist to use powders, inks, pastels, as well as the colours that he was particularly fond of (ochres, greens, blues); and the ambiguity between the brutality of the background and the beauty of the gesture. It is an exceptional picture." Michel Ragon, Paris 1997.
Castor Seibel, Secretary of the Comité Jean Fautrier, has similarly recognised the revolutionary aspect of Nu Couché. He sees it as the culmination of all the artist's chromatic and sculptural innovations, which in turn paved the way towards the "haute-pâte" of the Otages series. "The artist's sculptural experiences of the 1940s are so apparent in this extraordinary work that it could equally be described as a painted sculpture or a sculptural painting."
Seibel confirms that Nu Couché was initially conceived as a still-life and originally titled Day and Night. As such he believes it represents the conjunction of opposites. "One part of the painting seems to disappear as if submerged in the soberly varnished colours, while the other part is characterised by its sumptuous texture. Thus, the work depicts a reclining nude set both in darkness as well as in light. Our gaze is lost in this enormous abyss of flesh engulfed in vital energy, but also decay; the work exudes a sense of challenge as well as desertion." Castor Seibel, Paris, 1997
Few paintings so clearly demonstrate the precise moment at which an artist reached his seminal style as Fautrier's monumental Nu Couché. We are grateful to Michel Ragon, acclaimed art historian, critic and author of one of the first major monographs on Fautrier, who agreed to write the following text on this work in order to highlight its crucial importance:
"As a key transitional picture, Nu Couché is of historical significance both to Fautrier's work and to the history of European art. It is the last figurative picture of Fautrier's expressionist period as well as the first picture of what has been called "L'informel".
Executed right before the famous Otages (1943) and the Nus (1945) paintings, Nu Couché represents a still recognisable head with its morphology intact, enclosed by the round curves of an arm; an oval-shaped nude in a position of abandon that Fautrier will often replicate. Although unrealistic in the sense that the poetry of the forms seems exaggerated, Nu Couché is at the same time very naturalistic in the way that the dark silhouette blends into the space and is charged with organic force and veiled eroticism. These are major recurring themes in Fautrier's art.
Nu Couché is filled with emotions that foreshadow Fautrier's future and commemorate the artist's past. One could say that it is his first truly personal and innovative painting: with its heavy layers of paint; its subtle draughtsmanship that is at odds with the thick painted surface; its technique of paper laid down on canvas, which enables the artist to use powders, inks, pastels, as well as the colours that he was particularly fond of (ochres, greens, blues); and the ambiguity between the brutality of the background and the beauty of the gesture. It is an exceptional picture." Michel Ragon, Paris 1997.
Castor Seibel, Secretary of the Comité Jean Fautrier, has similarly recognised the revolutionary aspect of Nu Couché. He sees it as the culmination of all the artist's chromatic and sculptural innovations, which in turn paved the way towards the "haute-pâte" of the Otages series. "The artist's sculptural experiences of the 1940s are so apparent in this extraordinary work that it could equally be described as a painted sculpture or a sculptural painting."
Seibel confirms that Nu Couché was initially conceived as a still-life and originally titled Day and Night. As such he believes it represents the conjunction of opposites. "One part of the painting seems to disappear as if submerged in the soberly varnished colours, while the other part is characterised by its sumptuous texture. Thus, the work depicts a reclining nude set both in darkness as well as in light. Our gaze is lost in this enormous abyss of flesh engulfed in vital energy, but also decay; the work exudes a sense of challenge as well as desertion." Castor Seibel, Paris, 1997