Georges Mathieu

Georges Mathieu (January 27, 1921 – June 10, 2012) was a French painter in the style of Tachisme and/or Lyrical Abstraction.^[1]

Biography

Mathieu was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively. Despite his unconventional technique, he considered himself an historical painter working with abstract subject matter. His paintings are related to American Lyrical Abstraction and to Art informel as well.

Mathieu lacked a formal art education. In 1947 he was working for American Express in Paris, France and rented a chambre de bonne near the Palais Luxembourg. There he executed a number of large canvases with a black background on which he painted colored scrolls, whorls and other shapes. He subsequently refined his technique, using a white background on which he painted simple geometrical forms, most often a single line in color. In the 1950s he exhibited fifty of these canvases at the Leicester Galeries in London.

See also

• Lyrical Abstraction
• French art
• Tachisme
• Groupe Gutaï
• Michel Tapié

References

• Georges Mathieu; Dominique Quignon-Fleuret. Mathieu (New York : Crown Publishers, 1977) ISBN 0-517-53086-4; ISBN 978-0-517-53086-3
• Michel Tapié; Georges Mathieu; Stable Gallery (New York, N.Y.). The significant message of Georges Mathieu (New York : Stable Gallery, 1952) OCLC 79307225
• Müller-Yao, Marguerite Hui: Der Einfluß der Kunst der chinesischen Kalligraphie auf die westliche informelle Malerei, Diss. Bonn, Köln 1985. ISBN 3-88375-051-4

External links

• More information