The artist, who became a centenarian in 2019, marked the history of Art with his paintings in infinite shades of black.
The French painter Pierre Soulages, master of black and light, died at the age of 102, announced to AFP Alfred Pacquement, longtime friend of the painter and president of the museum which bears his name in Rodez ( Aveyron).
The artist, who became a centenarian in 2019, marked the history of Art with his paintings in infinite shades of black. An uncompromising creator, he never stopped exploring the mysteries of this pigment and painting.
“I like the authority of black, its gravity, its obviousness, its radicality (…) Black has unsuspected possibilities”, explained in December 2019 the artist, one of the few to have had the honors of the Louvre by his alive. “It’s a very active color. We put black next to a dark color and it lights up,” he confided in an interview with AFP.
A call to meditation
Tall, always dressed in black, Soulages never cut the link with his native land, Aveyron, while painting elsewhere. He was a man of loyalties, to himself, to the landscapes of his childhood, to the large plateaus, to his artistic quest for light.
Born on Christmas Day 1919 in Rodez, Pierre Soulages is the author of a long and prolific work, which presents itself as a call to meditation and introspection.
“My painting is rich with a host of possibilities, only one of which appears when you look at it, depending on where you are”, he confided in 2019 on France Culture. “It is multiple, which is fundamentally different from what is called painting.”
One of the most highly rated French artists
For more than 75 years, Soulages has tirelessly traced his path, attracting the recognition of cultural institutions and the art market which has made him one of the most highly rated active French artists. In 2018, he became the first living French painter to exceed the symbolic bar of 10 million dollars.
As his exhibition at the Louvre approaches at the end of 2019, one of his paintings from 1960 was sold for 9.6 million euros in Paris, a world record. In 2021, Paint (1961) had soared to $20.2 million. “It just means that there are wealthy people who can acquire works”, he swept, in The world.
Based in Sète, Soulages had entrusted his hometown with an exceptional collection of 250 works and 250 documents, which had been brought together in a museum located in Rodez.