At the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Nicolas de Staël as we have never seen him before

2023-09-14 20:00:03
“Landscape” (1952), by Nicolas de Staël (38 × 55 cm, oil on cardboard). PRIVATE COLLECTION/ADAGP, PARIS, 2023 COURTESY VERSAILLES ENCHERES/FRANÇOIS MALLET

Those who think they know the painting of Nicolas de Staël are in for quite a surprise: of the approximately 200 works exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, 70 have never, or very rarely, been shown in a French museum. Others are difficult to access for ordinary people, unless they go to Uruguay, for example, or to certain very posh chalets in Gstaad, Switzerland. As Fabrice Hergott, the museum director, writes, “we tell ourselves that we know, before believing we know, then realizing that we don’t know.”

The curators of the exhibition, the curator Charlotte Barat-Mabille and the art historian Pierre Wat, embarked on a treasure hunt for three years, questioning witnesses – firstly the descendants of the artist, but also its merchants – to trace the tracks back to their lucky owners. “What is prettyconfides Pierre Wat, It’s that certain collectors helped us in our quest, like the one who, after agreeing to lend us his paintings, said to us: “Wait, I have a friend who has some too…”

Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955) like we’ve never seen him before, it’s already fantastic. Nicolas de Staël, as we have never read him, is even better: the research carried out was also fruitful for the development of the exhibition catalogue, destined to become a reference work. He benefited from the help of a descendant of the artist, Marie du Bouchet, who coordinates the Nicolas de Staël Committee, responsible for monitoring the work, and who is the scientific advisor for the exhibition.

Landscape of Provence, 1953, oil on canvas, 33 x 46 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

“Arriving in his Lagnes studio in July 1953, the painter conveyed an atmosphere of bluish and transparent light. The most subtle variations of blue and white find their counterpoint here in the presence of an ultramarine tree in the foreground to the right of the canvas. » Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Tree, 1953, oil on canvas, 22 x 33 cm, private collection

“In Provence, the painter developed a palette of blues which allowed him to capture the most subtle nuances of Provençal light. The blue light of the sky is inscribed in the tree itself. » Jean Louis Losi / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Trees and houses, 1953, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, private collection

“Among the masterpieces painted in Provence, this painting is one of the last paintings by Nicolas de Staël created in the thickness of the material. Here nature finds its echo in the event of color. A perfect example of the fusion between abstraction and figuration. » Applicat-Prazan / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Red tree, 1953, oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm, private collection

“The Red Tree shows how the painter uses the opposites and oppositions at the heart of his palette to bring the painting to life. The weight of the tree is reversed here with an ascending red which seems to want to go beyond the limits of the frame. » Christie’s / ADAGP PARIS 2018

“This landscape represents the Vaucluse plain seen from the terrace of Castelet de Ménerbes that Nicolas de Staël purchased in November 1953. Small format which represents all the strength and breath of a larger canvas. » The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Staël, Ciel de Vaucluse, 1953, oil on canvas, 16 x 24 cm

“Sunsets appear in several paintings by Nicolas de Staël painted in Ménerbes. Here, the sun is captured at the moment of its disappearance, after setting the sky ablaze. » Jean Louis Losi / ADAGP PARIS 2018

The sun, 1953, oil on canvas, 16 x 24 cm, private collection

“In this painting painted on the motif, Staël approaches the sun head-on, avoiding any conventional representation. He wanted to capture the source of light, the one that cannot be looked at head on. » Jean Louis Losi / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Agrigente, 1953, oil on canvas, 59 x 77.7 cm, Henie Onstad Art Center, Hövikodden, Norway

“On returning from his trip to Sicily, the painter began work on a large number of paintings which would be painted in the workshops of Lagnes, then Ménerbes. Flat areas of pure color appear for the first time in his work, and the power of the same palette reveals from canvas to canvas the vivid memory of paroxysmal light and heat. » HENIE ONSTAD KUNSTSENTER, HÖVIKODDEN, NORWAY/ADAGP PARIS 2018

Agrigento, 1953-1954, oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, painted in Ménerbes, private collection

“Here, the light intensity reaches its peak with the greatest simplicity of the means of expression. The white of the canvas is now part of the painter’s palette. » Lefevre Fine Art, London / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Sicily, 1954, oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, private collection

“This Sicilian hill is an example of Nicolas de Staël’s research around the construction of space through color. A solid yellow underlies the triangular juxtapositions of reds, bright oranges, blues and greens. » Jean-Louis Losi / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Landscape of Sicily, 1953, oil on canvas, 87.5 x 129.5 cm, private collection

“In this large format landscape of Sicily, the palette of yellows unfolds in the foreground creating a contrast of great luminous intensity with the red sky and the green mountains. » Andrew Norman / The Fitzwilliam Museum, Image Library / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Les Martigues, 1954, oil on canvas, 61 x 50.5 cm, private collection

“This painting is part of the series of paintings painted in Martigues. The intensity of the light is translated here in a palette which contrasts a green sea with a red sky. The boats here are simple flat areas of yellow, purple, red and blue. Abstraction allows us to remain in the immediacy of perception. » Applicat-Prazan / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Agrigento, 1954, oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, private collection

“One of Nicolas de Staël’s strongest paintings. The large triangular areas of yellow, red and pink structure the painting through a perspective which leads the eye towards the exploded point of convergence in the center of the canvas. As if the element of the landscape scrutinized by the artist’s eye disappeared in favor of the deployment of space intensified by the dark purple of the sky. » Nicolas de Staël Committee / ADAGP PARIS 2018

Real nugget

For the anecdote, but not only, we establish the role of Jeanne Polge, the one for whom the painter went to live in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes), and for whose love he would have ended his life – think we say, the reasons for suicide being too complex to be linked to a simple romantic disorder. The name was known to specialists and certain museum curators, but disclosing the thread of this thwarted passion exposed them to the understandable anger of the artist’s legitimate wife, Françoise de Staël, with whom he would have been unwelcome. to get angry. The death of the latter, in 2012, liberated many languages. Jeanne Polge having died in 2014, the artist’s correspondence, republished by Germain Viatte a few months later, brought to light their epistolary exchanges (Nicolas de Staël. Letters 1926-1955, The Sound of Time, 2016). Now we can finally write history.

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