Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Fautrier Catalogue Raisonné being prepared by Madame Marie-José Lefort, Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris.
Considered by many to be one of the pioneers of Art Informel, Fautrier's strength lies in the exploration of the boundaries between art and reality, albeit not the reality of Nouveau Réalisme or Pop Art, but rather that of sensation and intuition. "One does no more than reinvent what already exists, one restores, with hints of emotion, the reality that is embodied in material, in form, in colour. (...) The action of painting is not simply the need to lay paint on a canvas, and one must admit that the desire for expression comes, at its origins, from something seen. As this reality is transformed - modelled into an image according to the temperament of the artist - the image ends up becoming more real than reality itself." (Jean Fautrier, quoted in Ex. Cat., Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Fautrier 1898-1989, p. 13).
Cortèges, 1963, is a delicate painting; at the same time, however, it is bursting with energy. In its cloud-like formlessness, it exemplifies the transcendental qualities which Fautrier sought to achieve during the final years of his life. Although the title refers to something specific, a subject taken from the real world, the true theme is the sensibility of pure material abstraction. In Cortèges, the paint is built up in a heavy central mass which seems to emerge or evolve out of the flat, monochrome ground. This mass of impasto is impregnated with flashes of colour that bear witness to the gestural act of painting. Form is no longer descriptive or symbolic, but along with colour and brushstroke, becomes a language in itself. In this sense, Fautrier's work of the late 50s and early 60s is related, albeit inadvertently, to the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock. In 1959, Fautrier wrote, "In art, only the abundance of the artist's sensibility can be of any value, because art is nothing other than a means of expressing this; but it is an insane means, unsystematic and irregular." (Fautrier, "Parallels to Informel", quoted in Ex. Cat. Cologne, Galerie Thomas Borgmann, Jean Fautrier, Ölbilder 1925-1959, 1976, unpaginated.)
Considered by many to be one of the pioneers of Art Informel, Fautrier's strength lies in the exploration of the boundaries between art and reality, albeit not the reality of Nouveau Réalisme or Pop Art, but rather that of sensation and intuition. "One does no more than reinvent what already exists, one restores, with hints of emotion, the reality that is embodied in material, in form, in colour. (...) The action of painting is not simply the need to lay paint on a canvas, and one must admit that the desire for expression comes, at its origins, from something seen. As this reality is transformed - modelled into an image according to the temperament of the artist - the image ends up becoming more real than reality itself." (Jean Fautrier, quoted in Ex. Cat., Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Fautrier 1898-1989, p. 13).
Cortèges, 1963, is a delicate painting; at the same time, however, it is bursting with energy. In its cloud-like formlessness, it exemplifies the transcendental qualities which Fautrier sought to achieve during the final years of his life. Although the title refers to something specific, a subject taken from the real world, the true theme is the sensibility of pure material abstraction. In Cortèges, the paint is built up in a heavy central mass which seems to emerge or evolve out of the flat, monochrome ground. This mass of impasto is impregnated with flashes of colour that bear witness to the gestural act of painting. Form is no longer descriptive or symbolic, but along with colour and brushstroke, becomes a language in itself. In this sense, Fautrier's work of the late 50s and early 60s is related, albeit inadvertently, to the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock. In 1959, Fautrier wrote, "In art, only the abundance of the artist's sensibility can be of any value, because art is nothing other than a means of expressing this; but it is an insane means, unsystematic and irregular." (Fautrier, "Parallels to Informel", quoted in Ex. Cat. Cologne, Galerie Thomas Borgmann, Jean Fautrier, Ölbilder 1925-1959, 1976, unpaginated.)