|
|
Article: Jean Fautrier: rapturous texture: an enigmatic pioneer of art informel, French painter Jean Fautrier created a varied and often contradictory body of work that was the focus of a recent U.S. museum survey.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Ever since his thickly impastoed canvases were first shown internationally in the mid-1940s, French painter Jean Fautrier (1898-1964) has generated controversy among critics, collectors and curators of postwar abstraction. Many Europeans viewed Fautrier as the quintessential painter-poet, whose existentialism-tinged works convey at once the trauma, angst and tentative optimism of those years. However, he confounded his supporters in the 1950s, when he began to mass-produce copies of his own paintings as well as those of other artists.
Fautrier's relationship with the U.S. has been generally stormy. Although he had several well-received exhibitions in the 1940s ...