Pierre SOULAGES (1919-2022) - Lot 228

Pierre SOULAGES (1919-2022) Composition, 1948 Walnut stain on paper, signed lower right 50.2 x 32.4 cm Provenance : Private collection, Paris An artist's certificate dated September 30, 2001 accompanies this work and will be given to the purchaser. After 1946, marked by the first abstract pictorial experiments, the years 1947-1949 were decisive in Soulages' work, as he used paper, and in particular walnut stain, to radically simplify his painting. "I was tormented by traditional painting, with its techniques and small, luxurious brushes reserved for artists," Soulages recalls. "At a color merchant's, I bought house painter's brushes, in ordinary silk, very wide, designed quite differently. Like a house painter, I wanted to work with a mass of ready-to-use paint. I wanted to use large jars of paint, and so in 1947 I chose walnut stain. I liked the power of its dark, warm color, and I also liked the fact that it was a cheap, commonplace material" ( P. Soulages, quoted by Pierre Encrevé, cat. rais. I, p. 53). Between 1947 and 1949, the artist produced some fifty walnut-stain paintings, mostly on paper. The shapes, projected towards the viewer by the lighter background of the paper, assert their presence and monumentality despite their reduced dimensions. Despite their rapid execution, they appear to have been built by a broad, solid gesture.