1914 -1955 · Brussels, Paris, Provence and Antibes

Blocks of color, dense material and tension between abstraction and visible world make Nicolas de Staël a major figure in post-war painting.

Nicolas de Staël was born in Saint Petersburg in 1914 and died in Antibes in 1955. Orphaned after his family's exile, he grew up in Brussels and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Installed in France, he went through war and the years of poverty before imposing after 1945 a painting constructed in large colored planes. Its thick material never completely breaks with reality: landscape, bottle, flower, boat, musician or football player remain the points of support for an autonomous organization of color. After a nighttime match seen at the Parc des Princes in 1952, he produced a series where lawn, light and movement become rectangles and shards. The Center Pompidou underlines may this work go beyond the opposition between abstraction and figuration. The discovery of the South then of Sicily nourished the Agrigento: yellows, reds, blacks and blues condensed hill, temple and heat. In Antibes, the dough becomes lighter, seascapes and still lifes gain speed and transparency. His work, carried out in around fifteen years of exceptional intensity, remains a continuous research on the capacity of color to capture the sensitive world. His work, carried out in around fifteen years of exceptional intensity, remains a continuous research on the capacity of color to capture the sensitive world. His work, carried out in around fifteen years of exceptional intensity, remains a continuous research on the capacity of color to capture the sensitive world. The "Nicolas de Staël" selection notably compares Le Parc des Princes and Agrigento. His reading favors the atmosphere.

De Staël does not choose between abstraction and landscape: he compresses light, space and sensation until a block of color becomes the world again.