Sale: 401 / Post War/Contemporary Art, Dec. 08. 2012 in Munich Lot 204

 

204
Georges Mathieu
Petit paramètre caché, 1955.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 65,000 / $ 70,200
Sold:
€ 101,260 / $ 109,360

(incl. surcharge)
Petit paramètre caché. 1955.
Oil on canvas.
Sigend and dated lower right. With date and title on stretcher. 73 x 116 cm (28,7 x 45,6 in).

We are grateful to Jean-Marie Cusinberche for his kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Kootz Gallery, New York (with label on stretcher).
Collection William A.M. Burden, New York.
Galerie Sander, Darmstadt.

EXHIBITION: Mathieu (période épistémologique), Kootz Gallery, New York 28 January - 18 February, 1956.

Georges Mathieu was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) in 1921. He began studying philosophy and literature but switched at the age of twenty-one to painting. Georges Mathieu's early works are realistic landscapes and portraits predating the gradual development of a highly individualistic, expressive abstract style. In 1947 Georges Mathieu and the painter Camille Bryen organized an exhibition of Tachist works. Mathieu also described that style as "non-figuration psychique" ("psychic non-figuration") or more particularly as "abstraction lyrique" ("lyrical abstraction"): the works were not bound by tradition and conventional rules of form. By 1951 Mathieu had organized several group shows and was one of the first artists in Europe to point out the importance of the American Abstract Expressionists. Georges Mathieu regarded the American painter Jackson Pollock, with his spontaneous, gestural style of painting, as the most important painter of that school. Georges Mathieu is a leading exponent of French Informel alongside Jean Fautrier and Jean Dubuffet. In 1954 Georges Mathieu started staging the painting of his pictures, which are in large formats, as artistic Action.

Mathieu finds many different sources of inspiration for his art. For instance, his gestural style is largely influenced by Hans Hartung and Wols and also by East Asian calligraphy. To the artist it is about a quick, direct, emotionally controlled and intuitive painting process, which often takes place in front of an audience. The painting process’s speediness integrates coincidence as a stylistic means. "As a sublime condition, I add the conception of physical energy and the condition of complete emptiness to the necessity of speed and improvisation " (Mathieu, transl. of quote after: Kindlers Malerei Lexikon, vol. IV, p. 347). Mathieu is also author of several theoretic writings, that propagate "lyrical abstraction" and Tachism as counter reaction to abstract Formalism. This work comes from an extremely productive period of creation during which he also began making sculptures and became one of the most acknowledged representatives of French Informel.

As an artist Georges Mathieu received international acclaim; his works were shown from the early 1950s at special exhibitions in both Paris and New York. Mathieu participated in numerous group shows worldwide. In 1959 works of Mathieu's were shown at Documenta II in Kassel. In the early 1960s George Mathieu sculpted but also produced designs for furniture, tapestries and murals. After his essay "Au-delà du Tachisme" was published in 1963 and followed by other theoretical writings, Georges Mathieu also made a name for himself as an art theorist. [DB].




204
Georges Mathieu
Petit paramètre caché, 1955.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 65,000 / $ 70,200
Sold:
€ 101,260 / $ 109,360

(incl. surcharge)