French artist Pierre Soulages is recognized as one of the greatest painters of the 20th and 21st centuries. He was always a maverick in his artistic endeavors, not affiliated with any school or art movement. Regarding his rejection of artist groups, he once stated, “I am drawn to an artist because he is unique, original, irreplaceable, not because he shares values with his colleagues.” When I hear about a movement, I am interested in what breaks away from it, what goes beyond it.” (Pierre Soulages, quoted from: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, issue 41, vol. 7, Munich 1998) The consistency with which he pursued this independent path throughout his life becomes evident in his oeuvre. On a purely formal level, his work can be classified as abstract painting with certain informal tendencies. However, in terms of form and style, Pierre Soulages is far from the pioneers and his contemporaries. With a radicalism and consistency rarely found in an artist's biography, he devoted his life's work to exploring and redefining the color black, always emphasizing that “the means of expression is not the color black, but light.” (Pierre Soulages in dialogue with Charles Juliet, quoted from: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Munich 1998, p. 14).

The artist was born in Rodez, Aveyron, in southern France in 1919. At 18, he traveled to Paris and visited its museums. He was fascinated with Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne. In 1941, he was drafted into military service and stationed in Montpellier, where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts, meeting the abstract artist Sonia Delaunay. After the war, Soulages had a studio in Courbevoie near Paris, where he made contacts with artists such as Caesar Domela, Francis Picabia, Hans Hartung, and Fernand Léger. The following year, his paintings were exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Surindépendants, bringing them to the attention of a wider audience. At an exhibition at Galerie Breteau in Paris, he met James Johnson Sweeney, then curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who supported his work for many years. Apart from trips to Mexico and the USA, his trip to Japan in 1958 was probably the most important. His early gestural, yet always compositionally balanced paintings with their black or brown block letters on light-colored backgrounds are based on impressions of his homeland's austere Romanesque architecture and Celtic monuments but also the influence of East Asian calligraphy. In later works, Soulages used wide rubber spatulas or roller brushes as painting tools, affecting his bold hatches' aesthetic effect.


As a prominent representative of French post-war modernism, Soulages was repeatedly exhibited in the documenta in Kassel in the 1950s and 1960s. His first major retrospective occurred in Hanover, Essen, and The Hague in 1960/61. Soulages subsequently received numerous international art prizes, including the Rembrandt Prize in Germany in 1976 and the Grand National Prize for Painting in Paris in 1987. In 1994, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for Painting in Japan, which is considered the “Nobel Prize for the Arts.” Until his death at the advanced age of 102 in 2022, Soulages' great success and creative energy remained unbroken. For his 100th birthday, the Louvre in Paris dedicated a major exhibition to him in the Salon Carré in 2019, an honor reserved for only a few artists. In its epitaph for the artist on October 26, 2022, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: “His black monochromes are among the most radical works produced by modern art.”

“Peinture 130 x 102 cm, 18 janvier 2011” is one of these radical, black monochrome works. Within his oeuvre, it can be assigned to a specific group of works in which the entire pictorial surface is covered with a layer of black paint that extends beyond the picture edges. No color nuances such as blue, red, or brown are permitted. No canvas area remains unpainted, preventing any interaction with the bright white of the primer, as was still the case in earlier works. The artist explains the origin of this particular type of painting: “One day, the color black had almost covered the entire surface of my canvas [...] Then I saw how this excess led to the negation of black: the differences in the material, in the texture, through which the light was absorbed or reflected, created values and a special colorfulness, a light, and spatiality that were so powerful that they aroused my desire to paint.... I have embarked on this path and constantly discover new possibilities here.” (Pierre Soulages in a talk with Charles Juliet, quoted from: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Munich 1998, p. 14). In the entirely black surface of the image carrier, Soulages finds reflections, structures, and variations, even a luminosity that he describes as “Outrenoir.” He uses this term to describe the result of his exploration of black, which continues to fascinate him in its many different variations. His Peinture from 2011 also reveals a surprising wealth of variation when exposed to light. The artist has worked horizontal grooves into the impasto, yet surprisingly matt surface with broad brushstrokes, which define the composition as shiny areas. They are arranged in three horizontal rows, slightly less pronounced on the left, stronger in the middle, and finally fully executed on the right. The result is a subtle sense of direction that guides the viewer's eye. Depending on the incidence of light, faint horizontal hatching appears in the upper left, where the notches are least pronounced, adding another layer of tactility.


Pierre Soulages' works come alive when viewed in their original form. No reproduction can ever do justice to the actual effect of his works. They only reveal their full impact in interaction with the viewer. The artist was also well aware of this fact. “But I know very well and have said this often enough that the reality of a picture is much more complex. This reality consists of the threefold relationship between the object [...], the painting, me, its creator, and the viewer. When one sees simplicity and rigor in some of these pictures, others speak of richness and sensuality. It depends on the person looking at them.” (Pierre Soulages in dialog with Charles Juliet, quoted from: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Munich 1998, p. 14f.) He continues:

“The painting unfolds as you look at it, in the moment of viewing itself.”

“A work of art needs to be viewed frequently. Beyond its immediate pleasure, it always conveys something essential.”

“Painting, above all, means acting spontaneously. It is a series of decisions that arise, follow one another, and come from deep within.”

“When you work with colors, spreading them across the surface, an unimaginable life emerges. You need a keen eye that transcends the barriers of habit and intention to perceive this life's full complexity and richness.”

Not every artist succeeds in talking about their work with such vivid clarity as Pierre Soulages. His words always testify to a deep commitment to his art, painting, and life's work. [AR]