- Pierre Soulages
Pierre Soulages (born
December 24 ,1919 ) is a French painter, engraver and sculptor.Born in
Rodez (Aveyron ) in 1919, Soulages is also known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour ("Both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own."). He sees light as a matter to work with; striating the black surface of his paintings enables him to make the light reflect, allowing the black to come out from darkness and into brightness, thereby becoming a luminous colour.Before
World War II , Soulages had already toured museums in Paris seeking his vocation, and after wartime military service, he opened a studio in Paris, holding his first exhibition at theSalon des Indépendants in 1947. He also worked as a designer of stage sets.In 1979 Pierre Soulages was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters .From 1987 to 1994, he produced 104 stained glass windows for the romanesque Abbey church Sainte-Foy in
Conques (Aveyron ,France ).He is the first living artist invited to exhibit at the state
Hermitage Museum ofSt. Petersburg , and then with theTretyakov Gallery ofMoscow (2001).In 2006, a composition of 1959 sold for 1.200.000 euros at
Sotheby's .In 2007, the
Musée Fabre ofMontpellier devoted a room to him, presenting his donation to the city. This donation includes 20 paintings from 1951 to 2006, among which are major works from the 1960s, two large plus-black works from the 1970s and several largepolyptych s.ee also
*
Tachisme
*Abstract expressionism
*Lyrical Abstraction External links
* [http://www.pierre-soulages.com/ Official web site]
* [http://www.galeriebirch.com/all-artists/pierre-soulages.html Biography, pictures at Galerie Birch]
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