Maurice ESTÈVE 1904-2001

Maurice Estève was born in 1904 in Culan, (department of the Cher, France), and grew up in modest circumstances. From an early age, he showed a deep sensitivity to color and drawing. Self-taught, he briefly attended the Académie Colarossi in Paris, but his real apprenticeship took place through contact with the great masters at the Louvre, where he discovered Courbet, Delacroix, Ingres, and Paolo Uccello. These influences nourished his personal research, which led him to go beyond Cubism and invent a unique abstract language.

From the 1930s onwards, Estève exhibited at the Salon des Surindépendants and established an aesthetic based on the interweaving of organic forms and powerful colors. His painting is characterized by dense compositions, where color becomes a subject in its own right, vibrating in bold harmonies. He also explored collage, textiles, and mural painting, taking his creative field beyond the canvas.

A leading representative of the Nouvelle École de Paris (the New School of Paris), alongside Bazaine, Manessier, and Singier, Estève embodies a lyrical and structured modernity.

His works have been exhibited in major institutions, from the Kunsthalle in Basel to the Grand Palais in Paris (major retrospective in 1986), not to mention the Royal Academy in London, as well as in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and elsewhere. They are now part of the collections of the Centre Pompidou and numerous international museums.

Maurice Estève, who died in 2001 in his hometown, left behind a prolific body of work in which color and organic form combine to create a pictorial universe of rare intensity.

Everything about Estève's work testifies to a life devoted to exploring painting as an autonomous, vibrant, and universal language.