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Lot Essay
‘If nature is de Staël’s source and inspiration, he never sentimentalises or lets it do his work for him. His paintings are not only sensitive responses to light, space and mass; they exist in their own right, and their existence is secured by the artist’s passionate feeling for paint and for tensions which exist only in art - on a flat, framed surface’
(J. Fitzsimmons, ‘In Love with Paint’, in The Arts Digest, vol. 27, no. 12, March 1953, p. 16).
With its physicality built up in fragmented broad strokes of thick paint, Composition, executed in 1950, embodies Nicolas de Staël’s evocative take on abstraction. The almost sculptural vibration of form is here modelled in a new method of composition developed by de Staël in 1949: here, the artist applies a dense layer of paint with a palette knife in blocks. In so doing, de Staël imbues each with a distinctive tonality, their interlocking hues suggesting an imagery fluctuating between abstraction and figuration. The artist’s tools leave a dense imprint, scratched and rippled in fields of earthy ochre, black and grey which are not defined by outlines, but separated from one another, the gap revealing a contrasting bright red layer of paint. The tessellated combinations of chromatic fields which will inform de Staël’s mature works are already here, as essential formal qualities distinguishing Composition. Executed the same year de Staël had one of his first solo-exhibitions at the Galerie Jacques Dubourg in Paris, the work marks a period of true international recognition for the artist, especially in the United States where his paintings were shown alongside Mark Rothko's at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York on the occasion of Young Painters from U.S. and France, a show curated by Leo Castelli. In this regard, Composition, exhibited in a major solo show which travelled from the Grand Palais in Paris to Tate in London in 1981, witnesses not only a moment of technical and compositional experimentation that would go on to inform his mature style, but also the consolidating of de Staël’s achievements as a key figure in the post-War art scene.
The visual balance and inner tranquility conveyed by de Staël’s physical manipulation of matter illustrates his intense engagement with composition and balance. The artist used to take notes in his sketchbooks about arrangements of colours and forms he was captivated by when admiring nature and his surroundings. In this sense, his abstract works always retain a mysterious hint to figuration, which usually, as in Composition, remains untold, a maze of possibilities for the viewer’s imagination. In James Fitzsimmons words: ‘If nature is de Staël’s source and inspiration, he never sentimentalises or lets it do his work for him. His paintings are not only sensitive responses to light, space and mass; they exist in their own right, and their existence is secured by the artist’s passionate feeling for paint and for tensions which exist only in art - on a flat, framed surface’ (J. Fitzsimmons, ‘In Love with Paint’, in The Arts Digest, vol. 27, no. 12, March 1953, p. 16). It was in this way that de Staël charted his own path against the pure abstract style that was de rigueur during the post-War period and bridged the gap between his contemporaries and the Modernist practices of artists such as Henri Matisse. In this regard, the viewer of Composition invites the viewers to let their senses register the impressions given by the weight of forms and their reciprocal contrast, in an aesthetic experience that remains open to interpretation.
(J. Fitzsimmons, ‘In Love with Paint’, in The Arts Digest, vol. 27, no. 12, March 1953, p. 16).
With its physicality built up in fragmented broad strokes of thick paint, Composition, executed in 1950, embodies Nicolas de Staël’s evocative take on abstraction. The almost sculptural vibration of form is here modelled in a new method of composition developed by de Staël in 1949: here, the artist applies a dense layer of paint with a palette knife in blocks. In so doing, de Staël imbues each with a distinctive tonality, their interlocking hues suggesting an imagery fluctuating between abstraction and figuration. The artist’s tools leave a dense imprint, scratched and rippled in fields of earthy ochre, black and grey which are not defined by outlines, but separated from one another, the gap revealing a contrasting bright red layer of paint. The tessellated combinations of chromatic fields which will inform de Staël’s mature works are already here, as essential formal qualities distinguishing Composition. Executed the same year de Staël had one of his first solo-exhibitions at the Galerie Jacques Dubourg in Paris, the work marks a period of true international recognition for the artist, especially in the United States where his paintings were shown alongside Mark Rothko's at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York on the occasion of Young Painters from U.S. and France, a show curated by Leo Castelli. In this regard, Composition, exhibited in a major solo show which travelled from the Grand Palais in Paris to Tate in London in 1981, witnesses not only a moment of technical and compositional experimentation that would go on to inform his mature style, but also the consolidating of de Staël’s achievements as a key figure in the post-War art scene.
The visual balance and inner tranquility conveyed by de Staël’s physical manipulation of matter illustrates his intense engagement with composition and balance. The artist used to take notes in his sketchbooks about arrangements of colours and forms he was captivated by when admiring nature and his surroundings. In this sense, his abstract works always retain a mysterious hint to figuration, which usually, as in Composition, remains untold, a maze of possibilities for the viewer’s imagination. In James Fitzsimmons words: ‘If nature is de Staël’s source and inspiration, he never sentimentalises or lets it do his work for him. His paintings are not only sensitive responses to light, space and mass; they exist in their own right, and their existence is secured by the artist’s passionate feeling for paint and for tensions which exist only in art - on a flat, framed surface’ (J. Fitzsimmons, ‘In Love with Paint’, in The Arts Digest, vol. 27, no. 12, March 1953, p. 16). It was in this way that de Staël charted his own path against the pure abstract style that was de rigueur during the post-War period and bridged the gap between his contemporaries and the Modernist practices of artists such as Henri Matisse. In this regard, the viewer of Composition invites the viewers to let their senses register the impressions given by the weight of forms and their reciprocal contrast, in an aesthetic experience that remains open to interpretation.