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Lot Essay
'I cover and discover the surfaces. I do not draw lines where the people looking at my picture will once more find the movements of my hand... I am telling nothing'
(P. Soulages, 27 March 1961, quoted in R. Vailland, 'Comment travaille Pierre Soulages', pp. 40-47 & 72, L'Oeil, no. 77, May 1961, p. 72).
Thick rivers of dark, glistening paint traverse the canvas, each one shimmering, allowing through the faint hint of light... Previously part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Pierre Soulages' Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 is an elegantly restrained paean to space, light and colour. The lower left-hand corner reveals a field of ochre that it appears might lurk behind all the dark bands of thick paint. This is an impression that is reinforced by the areas where the dark, viscous bands of paint are thinner, allowing some sense of the background to glimmer through, like embers of a fire of smouldering luminosity.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 dates from a period when Soulages' unique, brooding, potent lyrical abstraction was gaining more and more attention in the United States of America, as well as in France and Europe. Already in the late 1940s, Soulages had already come to the attention of the legendary curator James Johnson Sweeney, the then director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and former director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sweeney would later organise a number of important exhibitions and monographs of the artist's work. In that period, Soulages' works were shown sometimes alongside both European and American abstract artists, including Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, with whose works he is often compared. However, the two artists came from very different viewpoints, regardless of the similar appearance of the structure of their pictures: Kline often used sketches in order to create pre-ordained compositions, whereas Soulages responded moment by moment, stroke by stroke, to the organic situation that resulted in his artwork.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was painted, as its title indicates, in the middle of March 1961. This was an important period for Soulages, as he had consolidated an artistic language that had developed gradually, constantly evolving, since the late 1940s, when he had started to garner attention both at home and abroad. In the earlier works Soulages created after his development of an abstract idiom, when all traces of signs had dissolved, the artist often created lattice-like patterns of dark bars of colour. Gradually, these increased in the sense of visual mass that they conveyed, resulting in pictures such as Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 where the darkness covers much of the surface. It is no longer a simple matter of foreground and background, or motif and backdrop, as it had been earlier. Instead, with our eyes we follow the movements, the horizontal and diagonal movements that have coalesced to create this pulsing, rhythmic composition. Soulages has dismantled and discarded figuration, instead exploring the visual potency of paint to explore and convey a sense of space. And this is achieved by his incredible ability to paint a picture that is predominantly black and yet which evokes a rich play of light.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was painted less than a fortnight before the now-celebrated visit the writer Roger Vailland made to Soulages' studio. On that occasion, Vailland became the sole witness to Soulages' processes and techniques as he created his work, describing his careful selection of a canvas size that suited his mood, of the tools and implements he used, the glass upon which paint would be smeared in order to assess its luminosity, and the various unusual implements that he would use in order to manipulate the paint on the canvas, prefiguring Gerhard Richter's use of the squeegee over two decades later. As is indicated by the precise titles of his works, Soulages is responding to a particular moment in time, to a particular canvas, in creating his works such as Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961. 'Soulages never plans ahead when he begins a painting,' Vailland explained, 'he creates a situation with a canvas and some colours, always a very small number of colours. Or it could be said that he allows himself opportunities; he opens a door to chance. Then he manages to make the most of the situation, to play his hand. This works or does not work. The painting is created or is not created' (ibid., p. 46). In the case of Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961, Soulages clearly felt that the picture 'worked', as he has long been careful about allowing works to enter circulation.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 itself was shown in two American exhibitions within a short time of its creation. One of these was held at the Kootz Gallery in New York, with which Soulages had been associated for some time; this picture was also shown the following year at in a show at MIT. American collectors were flocking to Soulages during this period. Indeed, in 1961 alone, he was visited by famous figures such as Otto Preminger and Charles Laughton. This contact with the world of celebrity in the United States is reflected by the provenance of Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 too: the picture soon entered the collection of Richard Rodgers, a composer associated with a vast number of Broadway hits who also owned an impressive collection of works by artists from a range of cultures and periods - and at least two other paintings by Soulages. Some of these may have been acquired by his wife Dorothy, a respected interior designer who wrote several books on the subject. Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was subsequently owned by the Museum of Modern Art.
(P. Soulages, 27 March 1961, quoted in R. Vailland, 'Comment travaille Pierre Soulages', pp. 40-47 & 72, L'Oeil, no. 77, May 1961, p. 72).
Thick rivers of dark, glistening paint traverse the canvas, each one shimmering, allowing through the faint hint of light... Previously part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Pierre Soulages' Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 is an elegantly restrained paean to space, light and colour. The lower left-hand corner reveals a field of ochre that it appears might lurk behind all the dark bands of thick paint. This is an impression that is reinforced by the areas where the dark, viscous bands of paint are thinner, allowing some sense of the background to glimmer through, like embers of a fire of smouldering luminosity.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 dates from a period when Soulages' unique, brooding, potent lyrical abstraction was gaining more and more attention in the United States of America, as well as in France and Europe. Already in the late 1940s, Soulages had already come to the attention of the legendary curator James Johnson Sweeney, the then director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and former director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sweeney would later organise a number of important exhibitions and monographs of the artist's work. In that period, Soulages' works were shown sometimes alongside both European and American abstract artists, including Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, with whose works he is often compared. However, the two artists came from very different viewpoints, regardless of the similar appearance of the structure of their pictures: Kline often used sketches in order to create pre-ordained compositions, whereas Soulages responded moment by moment, stroke by stroke, to the organic situation that resulted in his artwork.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was painted, as its title indicates, in the middle of March 1961. This was an important period for Soulages, as he had consolidated an artistic language that had developed gradually, constantly evolving, since the late 1940s, when he had started to garner attention both at home and abroad. In the earlier works Soulages created after his development of an abstract idiom, when all traces of signs had dissolved, the artist often created lattice-like patterns of dark bars of colour. Gradually, these increased in the sense of visual mass that they conveyed, resulting in pictures such as Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 where the darkness covers much of the surface. It is no longer a simple matter of foreground and background, or motif and backdrop, as it had been earlier. Instead, with our eyes we follow the movements, the horizontal and diagonal movements that have coalesced to create this pulsing, rhythmic composition. Soulages has dismantled and discarded figuration, instead exploring the visual potency of paint to explore and convey a sense of space. And this is achieved by his incredible ability to paint a picture that is predominantly black and yet which evokes a rich play of light.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was painted less than a fortnight before the now-celebrated visit the writer Roger Vailland made to Soulages' studio. On that occasion, Vailland became the sole witness to Soulages' processes and techniques as he created his work, describing his careful selection of a canvas size that suited his mood, of the tools and implements he used, the glass upon which paint would be smeared in order to assess its luminosity, and the various unusual implements that he would use in order to manipulate the paint on the canvas, prefiguring Gerhard Richter's use of the squeegee over two decades later. As is indicated by the precise titles of his works, Soulages is responding to a particular moment in time, to a particular canvas, in creating his works such as Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961. 'Soulages never plans ahead when he begins a painting,' Vailland explained, 'he creates a situation with a canvas and some colours, always a very small number of colours. Or it could be said that he allows himself opportunities; he opens a door to chance. Then he manages to make the most of the situation, to play his hand. This works or does not work. The painting is created or is not created' (ibid., p. 46). In the case of Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961, Soulages clearly felt that the picture 'worked', as he has long been careful about allowing works to enter circulation.
Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 itself was shown in two American exhibitions within a short time of its creation. One of these was held at the Kootz Gallery in New York, with which Soulages had been associated for some time; this picture was also shown the following year at in a show at MIT. American collectors were flocking to Soulages during this period. Indeed, in 1961 alone, he was visited by famous figures such as Otto Preminger and Charles Laughton. This contact with the world of celebrity in the United States is reflected by the provenance of Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 too: the picture soon entered the collection of Richard Rodgers, a composer associated with a vast number of Broadway hits who also owned an impressive collection of works by artists from a range of cultures and periods - and at least two other paintings by Soulages. Some of these may have been acquired by his wife Dorothy, a respected interior designer who wrote several books on the subject. Peinture, 100 x 100cm.; 14 mars 1961 was subsequently owned by the Museum of Modern Art.