(Paris 1898–1964 Chatenay) Untitled, 1961, oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 33.5 x 55.5 cm, framed, (PP)

The work will be included in the catalogue raisonné of Jean Fautrier currently being compiled by Marie-José Lefort, Geneva.

Provenance:
Collection Carlo Monzino, Europe (label on the reverse)

Literature:
Jean Fautrier, Stamperia Artistica Nazionale, Turin, no. VI with ill.

From the beginning of the 1960s it was the material itself which took centre stage in Fautrier’s work. The artist elevates the various colours and materials, and their relationships with one another, above the actual content of the works. Essentially, his compositions are horizontal as well as vertical and diagonal elements, in which his application of colour is characterised by an unusual plasticity. Fautrier’s lines are chromatic figures rather than symbols, with the mixing of various colours lending the texture of the image its dynamic character. The artist developed a pictorial language in which the various rhythms collide and merge with one another.
And so too in the present work, it is the colour composition which is at the forefront: a combination of pink and blue tones on a light grey background. Like many of his later works, this work knows neither a spatial nor a temporal dimension. Fautrier’s art is based on ambiguity and mirrors the artist’s political and artistic freedom and independence.
(cf. Pierre Cabanne, Jean Fautrier, Edition de la Différence, Paris 1988)