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Lot Essay
François Morellet’s 2 Trames 0º 90º interval 14-17 is a large, black and white square with two grids, one superimposed over the other, resulting in a more complex grid with four alternately sized squares found within. The interplay of lines is such that as the viewer’s eyes are naturally guided to the central square, the surrounding grid appears to ebb and flow — a well calculated optical illusion.
Born in Cholet, France, in 1926, Morellet definitively switched to abstract art after his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Creuze in Paris in 1950. He then sought to remove the artist from his art by creating a language of lines assembled into optically-unnerving shapes, kinetic sculptures, and chance-driven artworks. In 1961, he founded the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (Visual Art Research Group, or GRAV), together with, among others, artists Francisco Sobrino, Jésus Raphael Soto, Julio Le Parc, and Jean-Pierre Yvaral, the son of Victor Vasarely. GRAV experimented with removing the individual artist from the artwork by encouraging collective authorship and audience participation. The founding of the group marked Morellet’s transition to systems-based artwork, a path he would follow for the rest of his life. Until 1975, he balanced his painting career with his position running a family business that made model cars for children.
Morellet’s sources of inspiration were many. His geometric aesthetic focus found its origins in the works of Piet Mondrian. The constraints he applied to his system-based art, as well as some of the humour woven into them, looked to the works of French novelist Georges Perec, member of the writer-mathematician group Oulipo, which advocated constrained writing techniques often based on mathematical problems. John Cage’s chance-based music suggested a sense of rhythm to be found in imposed limits. The current work, 2 Trames, with trames translating to warps, grids, or matrices, is representative of a five decade-long pursuit for the artist: that of finding beauty and complexity in repeated, simple constructions.
One of four works by François Morellet on auction from the Hoekstra Collection, the current piece is an important cornerstone of the collection’s overall representation of the international Constructivist and Systems-based artistic movements of the latter half of the 20th century, including artists such as Jeffrey Steele, Malcolm Hughes, Peter Struycken, herman de vries, Jan Schoonhoven, and Ad Dekkers. Hoekstra donated another work in his possession by Morellet to the Groningen Museum in 1980. Morellet, who remained prolifically productive until his final days, died at the age of ninety in his lifelong hometown of Cholet in 2016.
Born in Cholet, France, in 1926, Morellet definitively switched to abstract art after his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Creuze in Paris in 1950. He then sought to remove the artist from his art by creating a language of lines assembled into optically-unnerving shapes, kinetic sculptures, and chance-driven artworks. In 1961, he founded the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (Visual Art Research Group, or GRAV), together with, among others, artists Francisco Sobrino, Jésus Raphael Soto, Julio Le Parc, and Jean-Pierre Yvaral, the son of Victor Vasarely. GRAV experimented with removing the individual artist from the artwork by encouraging collective authorship and audience participation. The founding of the group marked Morellet’s transition to systems-based artwork, a path he would follow for the rest of his life. Until 1975, he balanced his painting career with his position running a family business that made model cars for children.
Morellet’s sources of inspiration were many. His geometric aesthetic focus found its origins in the works of Piet Mondrian. The constraints he applied to his system-based art, as well as some of the humour woven into them, looked to the works of French novelist Georges Perec, member of the writer-mathematician group Oulipo, which advocated constrained writing techniques often based on mathematical problems. John Cage’s chance-based music suggested a sense of rhythm to be found in imposed limits. The current work, 2 Trames, with trames translating to warps, grids, or matrices, is representative of a five decade-long pursuit for the artist: that of finding beauty and complexity in repeated, simple constructions.
One of four works by François Morellet on auction from the Hoekstra Collection, the current piece is an important cornerstone of the collection’s overall representation of the international Constructivist and Systems-based artistic movements of the latter half of the 20th century, including artists such as Jeffrey Steele, Malcolm Hughes, Peter Struycken, herman de vries, Jan Schoonhoven, and Ad Dekkers. Hoekstra donated another work in his possession by Morellet to the Groningen Museum in 1980. Morellet, who remained prolifically productive until his final days, died at the age of ninety in his lifelong hometown of Cholet in 2016.