Jean Fautrier
"NU DE DOS", Jean Fautrier (Paris, May 16 ...

"NU DE DOS", Jean Fautrier (Paris, May 16, 1898-Châtenay-Malabry, July 21, 1964), French school of the 20th century
Ink on paper. Provenance: René Metras Gallery, Barcelona, Catalan private collection. Framed measures: 64,5 x 56, paper measures: 32 x 25 cm. Jean Fautrier was born in Paris. After the death of his father he emigrated with his mother to London. At the age of 14 he entered to study at the Royal Academy, where he was taught by Sickert. He also attended the Slade School of Art. In 1917 he returned to France, when he was mobilized for the First World War. In the course of the war he was gassed and demobilized. After the war, he stayed to live in Paris. He began to paint in 1921 and the following year his exhibitions began: Salon d'Automne in 1922, Galerie Fabre in 1923, Salon des Tuileries in 1924. In 1927, he painted a series of paintings (still lifes, nudes, landscapes) in which the color black predominates. His work is part of the anti-cubist trend analogous to that of Derain. In 1928 he began working on a series of engravings for an illustrated edition of Dante's Inferno, prepared by Gallimard (which was unsuccessful). In the twenties he made a series of trips that made his work evolve, especially from 1926, creating paintings of cold and somber tones. Until 1933, when his exclusive contract ended, he divided his efforts between sculpture and painting. He had the support of André Malraux and Jean Paulhan. However, he was unsuccessful and spent five years (1934-1939) as an innkeeper and ski instructor in Tignes (Tarentaise, Isère Valley). Fautrier returned to painting in 1937, and in 1943 he made his twenty-second and last sculpture: the large Tête d'otage. That same year, arrested by the German Gestapo, he fled Paris and found refuge in Châtenay-Malabry, where he began work on the Otages (Hostages) project. These paintings were exhibited in 1945 at the Drouin Gallery and were his first artistic success. In the following years, Fautrier worked on the illustration of several works, including Madame Edwarda and Hallelujah by Georges Bataille (1947), and made a series of paintings dedicated to many small familiar objects. In 1950, he invented with the help of his partner, Jeanine Aeply, a complex process mixing intaglio reproduction and painting that allowed him to print his works in numerous copies, a technique that allowed him to create "multiple originals" (in French, Originaux multiples). As a reaction to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, he painted the series of Têtes de partisans on the motif of the Otages. He won the grand prize at the Venice Biennale in 1960. His late work is abstract, generally of small size, often combining mixed techniques on paper, with a geometric content. He died in Châtenay-Malabry in 1964. The Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Martigny, Switzerland, organized a retrospective in January-March 2005.