In the immediate post-war period, the artist, coming from the New School in Paris, chose a form of free, independent figuration, and inaugurated a kind of personal experimentation that allowed him to stand out from the movements in which he was interested. He distanced himself from the Parisian art scene and the concept of ‘Total Abstraction’ that dominated the milieu. He settled for a few months in Ostend (Belgium) from November 1946 onwards, motivated by a desire to renew his painting.

Seduced by the ‘delicate atmosphere’ of the port, the ‘rustling of forms’, the ‘gentle sway of light and sails’, Édouard Pignon worked alone to create a new mode of production, one which would prove crucial to the evolution of his artwork.