Pierre Soulages

From the start of his career now spanning over eight decades, Pierre Soulages chose to free himself from all academic and cultural constraints as well as from all traditional aesthetic values. He opted for radical and instinctive ways of expression through total abstraction. Known as the “painter of black and light”, he creates vibrating, glistening and ever changing works of art that redefine our understanding of the spatial and temporal dimensions of painting.

Pierre Soulages works are featured in the collections of more than 300 international museums, including the MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. In 2014, the Musée Soulages opened in his hometown of Rodez, France. Solo exhibitions of his work opened simultaneously at the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou in Paris in December 2019 to celebrate the artist’s 100^th birthday.

I like the authority of the black. It is a colour that does not compromise. A violent colour but which nevertheless encourages interiorisation. Both colour and non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own.