Provenance: Art Champs Elysées, Paris. Acquired here by the present owner. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark. “I consider him the strongest of all new European painters. Georges Mathieu, the transatlantic painter I admire most.” Clement Greenberg, 1959

The French painter and art theorist George Mathieu plays a crucial role in the development of the Abstract Expressionist movement that emerges in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At a time when Paris is the centre of the art world, Mathieu, who is fluent in English, becomes a natural link between the European and American art scene.

While the previous era is dominated by a visual idiom consisting of geometric abstractions, which in a way favours form over content, Mathieu challenges the limits of what painting is – and not least what it can.

This newfound aesthetic is dubbed “Abstraction Lyrique” (Lyrical Abstraction) and aims for a more uninhibited creative and spontaneous expression. Mathieu’s art is thus characterized by an almost calligraphic quality, an immediacy and great visual freedom, as can be seen in the work “Hommage à Antonio Conselheiro” from 1959, which we present at this auction.

During the 1950s, Mathieu further expanded on the perception of the boundaries of visual art by performing “live paintings” on large canvases in front of a contemplative audience; a method that makes him a pioneer of action painting and performance art. Some even call him an early source of inspiration for street art.

Despite this very central role of the period, Mathieu subsequently stands in the shadow of other artists of the time, such as Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein, Zao Wou-Ki and Pierre Soulages. In recent years, however, he has been rediscovered, and in an article from “Le Figaro” in 2018, it is predicted that Georges Mathieu's renaissance has now – quite deservedly – begun.