Exhibition Jean FAUTRIER, The 20’s
15 September – 31 October 2023
Opening on Thursday, 14 September
The exhibition Jean FAUTRIER The 20’s presents several oils from the famous art dealers Jeanne Castel and Paul Guillaume as well as rare large red chalks, vigorous nudes of exceptional quality.
The catalog published for this exhibition will be available after the opening, at the gallery and in digital version on this page.
“Painting is my only reason for existing,
with women of course.”
Jean Fautrier
Solitude and grandeur
The legendary discretion of Jean Fautrier has undoubtedly contributed to his work often being on the sidelines of major pictorial events in the 20th century.
There is no doubt that his demanding temperament contributed to an isolation that he had chosen.
This unusual character, silent and secretive, used to say, not without a sense of humor: “Painting is my only reason for existing, with women of course”. His career, which began expressionist realism, crystallizes in a blaze of glory: the informal, of which he is the champion.
Today, his audacious work is considered one of the major contributions to lyrical abstraction. Organized according to period into thematic series, the rich corpus he left behind – in chromatic power, of course, if not in number – is of a tension that reflects the exacting demands of his pictorial quest, freed from any temptation to virtuosity.
It is indeed Fautrier l’enragé who stands out in the pantheon of twentieth-century French painting.
Daniel Marchesseau,
Honorary General Conservator of Heritage
Curator of the “Jean Fautrier” exhibition, Pierre Gianadda Foundation, Martigny, Switzerland, 2005
Videos
One minute with Jean Fautrier
Report from the “Chercheurs d’art” program on BFM TV
Some works from the exhibition
Jean FAUTRIER, The 20’s
Click on the images to enlarge them
Poire et raisins
Circa 1928-1929
Oil on canvas
55 x 46 cm
Provenance
Jeanne Castel and Paul Guillaume gallery, Paris
Estate Suzanne Adler
Private collection, Biot
Le client au bordel
Circa 1925
Gouache and watercolor on paper
25 x 24 cm
Provenance
Paul Guillaume collection, Paris
Mrs Paul Bernheim collection
Galerie Journet, Cannes, 1969
Private collection, Paris
Andrée Pierson, nu assis
1923
Red chalk on paper
100 x 73 cm
Provenance
Private collection, Paris
Nu de dos
Circa 1923
Red chalk
70 x 46,4 cm
Provenance
Comte de Carladès collection, France
Marc-André Stalter collection, Paris
Private collection, Paris
Fleurs dans un vase
1929
Oil on canvas
73 x 60,5 cm
Provenance
Jeanne Castel gallery, Paris
Sale Laurin-Guilloux-Buffetaud, Palais Galliéra, Paris, 1972, n°114
Pierre Maurs collection, Paris
Private collection, Paris
Catalogue
Click on the cover to open the catalogue
Biographical landmarks
1898 Birth of Jean Fautrier
1923 Fautrier meets Jeanne Castel who will introduce him to Paul Guillaume in 1925
1924 First exhibition at the Visconti Gallery – Paris: sanguines et aquarelles
1926 Galerie Zborowski – Paris presents works by Fautrier, Modigliani, Kisling, Soutine, Derain
1927 Paul Guillaume organizes a solo exhibition at the Bernheim Gallery – Paris
1928 André Malraux lasks him to illustrate Dante’s Inferno
1942 Fautrier meets Jean Paulhan
1945 Fautrier paints the Otages in Châtenay-Malabry, exhibited at the Galerie Drouin, Paris, catalog preface by André Malraux
1946 Publication of Notes sur les Otages by Francis Ponge
1944-49 Galerie Drouin exhibits Fautrier, Dubuffet, Mathieu, Wols, Delaunay, Arp
1949 Publication of Fautrier l’enragé by Jean Paulhan
1960 Grand prix of the Venice Biennale with Hans Hartung
Publication of a catalog on the works of Jean Fautrier before 1961 by P. Bucarelli
1961 Grand prix of the 7th Tokyo Biennale
1964 Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris
Death of Jean Fautrier
1973 Giorgio Galansino Thesis: Chronology of each painting 1921-1942, University of Chicago
1977 Publication of L’atelier contemporain by Francis Ponge
1980 Kunsthalle Exhibition – Cologne
1982 Andre Stalter Thesis: Recherches sur la vie et l’œuvre de Jean Fautrier de leurs commencements à 1940, essay on methodical catalog and interpretation, University of Sorbonne Paris IV
1985 Museum of Fine Arts Exhibition – Calais – Dark Period
1986 Stedelijk Museum Exhibition – Amsterdam
1989 Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris
1996 Exhibition at the National Museum Fernand Léger – Biot and Mücsarnok – Budapest
2005 Pierre Gianadda Foundation Exhibition – Martigny
2014 Exhibitions in the National Museums of Tokyo, Toyota, and Osaka
Exhibition at the Departmental Domain Museum of Sceaux
2017 Kunstmuseum Exhibition – Winterhtur
2018 Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris
2023 Publication of the Catalogue raisonné de l’Œuvre peint de Jean Fautrier, developed and written by Marie José Lefort, published by NORMA Editions with the support of Christie’s France.
