MUSÉE D'ART MODERNE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS, PARIS (FR) 26 January 2018 - 20 May 2018
Jean Fautrier. Matière et lumière
Thirty years after a previous retrospective devoted to the artist in the same venue, this exhibition presents some 200 artworks, including almost 160 paintings, drawings and engravings.
Curators : Fabrice Herrgott and Dieter Schwarz
Although rarely exhibited, Jean Fautrier is today considered to be the most important precursor to informal art, a movement that appeared in 1928; he was renowned for his thick impasto technique in the 1940s, and was a major figure in the renewal of modern art following Cubism.
In his famous series—Otages (1943-1945), Objets (1955), Nus (1956), Partisans (1957)—the material effects become the main subject or focus of the painting. Jean Fautrier used a paint mixed with glue which bound the masses of pigment to the transparent and/or opaque ink, resulting in an intentional, luminous harmony, where the impasto effect and various textures may be said to generate a certain sense of anxiety.
For this retrospective, the Fondation has lent Sarah, a portrait executed in 1943, and one of the artist’s key pieces.
Press review
Les Echos — 12.01.2018
« Jean Fautrier : le géant sous-estimé »
Le Quotidien de l'Art — 08.01.2018
« Les grandes expositions de l'année »
Beaux Arts Magazine — 01.01.2018
« Jean Fautrier, virtuose de la matière »