He was the oldest of his generation. Born on December 24, 1919 in Rodez (Aveyron), the painter Pierre Soulages died, announced his entourage to AFP, confirming information from Midi Libre. “It’s sad news, I just hung up with his widow, Colette Soulages,” said Alfred Pacquement, a longtime friend of the painter when announcing his death.
Since the end of the 1940s, Pierre Soulages had devoted himself to abstract art, and had subsequently become a representative of the informal painting movement. He was particularly known for his use of the color black.
In Rodez, his hometown, a museum of contemporary art, inaugurated in 2014, bears his name and houses an important collection of the painter. Pierre Soulages had made several donations, the last dating from 2020, where he had delivered around twenty works.
To celebrate his hundredth birthday, the Louvre Museum celebrated him with an exhibition, which began on December 11, 2019. On this occasion, “Le Parisien” was able to meet him in Sète, in his studio, facing the sea. then the secret of his longevity: “It is to love life! », « to make it something less stupid than what we often do, unfortunately ».
One of his paintings sold for 9.6 million euros
As this exhibition approaches, one of his paintings from 1960 was sold for 9.6 million euros in Paris, a world record. The previous record was 9.2 million for a 1959 canvas, sold in 2018 in New York.
Born in a modest home after the First World War, he grew up with a coachbuilder father, who died when he was only five years old. He was raised by his mother who ran a fishing and hunting tackle store. Very early on, Soulages disdained “pretty watercolor colors” and painted in ink trees in winter, bare branches, snow effects.
During a school visit to the nearby Sainte-Foy de Conques abbey, the teenager had a revelation in front of the beauty of this Romanesque church: he would be a painter. Pierre Soulages was admitted to the Beaux-Arts in Paris on the eve of the Second World War. But he skipped classes, preferring to train in Montpellier.
He moved to Paris in 1947
In 1941, he met Colette Llaurens there, whom he married a year later, provided with false papers to escape the Compulsory Labor Service (STO), which forced young French people to work for Germany.
In 1947, the young painter moved to Paris where he was noticed by Francis Picabia who encouraged him, as well as Fernand Léger. Abstract painting was then popular. But it is red, yellow, blue. Soulages, he chooses to work with the humble walnut husk, used to tint the wood, and house painter’s brushes.
In the 1950s, his paintings entered the most prestigious museums in the world such as the Guggenheim in New York or the Tate Gallery in London. He meets the main representatives of the New York School, including Mark Rothko who becomes his friend.
The large canvases from the 1950s to the 1970s testify to the painter’s work on chiaroscuro. Black asserts itself in a relationship with other colors such as red or blue, in particular thanks to the technique of scraping.
The artist, who preferred to work flat, swung into “outrenoir” in 1979: while struggling on a work entirely covered in thick black, Soulages realized that he had just taken a step by streaking it. “I was beyond the dark, in another mental field,” he said. “The pot I paint with is black. But it is the light, diffused by reflections, that matters”.
In 1986, the State placed an order for more than 100 stained glass windows for the abbey church of Conques. They were inaugurated in 1994.