Jean Fautrier (; May 16, 1898 – July 21, 1964) was a French painter, illustrator, printmaker, and sculptor. He was one of the most important practitioners of

Tachisme __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain; ) is a French style of Abstract art, abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the ...

Early life

Jean Fautrier was born in Paris in 1898. He was given his unwed mother's surname, and raised by his grandmother until she and his father both died in 1908. He then moved to London to be with his mother.Grove Art Online. There, in 1912, he began to study at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. Unsatisfied by instruction he thought too rigid, he left to study briefly at the

Slade School The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, which was reputed to be more

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

. He was disappointed again and decided to teach himself, devoting himself to painting. The works he saw in the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

made a far greater impression on him; he especially admired the paintings of

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

. He was called up for the French Army in 1917, but was discharged in 1921 due to his poor health. He first exhibited his paintings at the Salon d'Automne in 1922 and at the Fabre Gallery in 1923. It was at the Galerie Fabre that he met art dealer Jeanne Castel, his first collector and friend. In 1923 he began producing etchings and engravings. His first solo exhibition was at the Galerie Visconti in Paris, in 1924. In 1927, he painted a series of pictures (

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s, nudes, landscapes) in which black dominates. In 1928 he met

André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...

through Castel. Malraux asked Fautrier to illustrate a text of his choice, but copyright issues kept him from using his first choice,

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...

's ''Les Illuminations'', and he settled instead with Dante's ''Inferno''. He produced 34

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

, but the publication, proposed by Gallimard, was deemed impossible and the project was abandoned in 1930. Until 1933 he divided his efforts between sculpture and painting. Short on funds, he spent the years 1934–1936 living in the resort of

Tignes Tignes () is a commune in the Tarentaise Valley, in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France, known for the highest skiable area and the longest ski season in Europe. It is located in the Savoie region with good ...

, where he made his living as a ski instructor and started a jazz club.

World War II and after

In 1939, just as

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

was beginning, Fautrier left the mountains, moving to Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, and Bordeaux before finally returning to Paris in 1940 and starting to paint once again. In Paris he met several poets and writers for whom he created illustrations. In January 1943, he was arrested by the German

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

. After brief imprisonment, he fled Paris and found refuge in

Châtenay-Malabry Châtenay-Malabry () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the center of Paris. The French writer Chateaubriand lived in the estate at Châtenay-Malabry. The Garden City in the Butte Rouge, the , is one of t ...

, where he began work on the project of the ''Otages'' (or "Hostages"). These paintings were a response to the torture and execution of French citizens by the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

outside his residence, and were exhibited in 1945 with the Drouin gallery. In the years that followed, Fautrier worked on the illustrations of several works, among them ''L'Alleluiah'' by

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...

, and made a series of paintings devoted to small familiar objects. His late work is abstract, generally small in scale, often combining mixed media on paper. In 1960 he won the international grand prize at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

as well as another major award at the Tokyo Biennale the following year. He died in

in 1964, the same year in which he had made donations to the Musée de l’Ile-de-France in Sceaux and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. A retrospective of his work opened there later that year. and was organized by the Gianadda Foundation at

Martigny Martigny (; , ; ) is the capital city of the district of Martigny (district), Martigny, cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Valais, Valais, Switzerland. It lies at an elevation of , and its population is approximately 20,000 inhabitants ( ...

in January–March 2005.

List of some works

* (1942) ''Large Tragic Head''Tate.org.uk
Retrieved June 22, 2014. * (1942) ''Reclining Woman IV'' * (1943–44) ''Head of a Hostage'' * (1945) ''Dark Landscape'' * (1945) ''Dépouille''The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Retrieved June 22, 2014. * (1945) ''The Executed'' * (1946) ''Hostages on a Black Ground'' * (1947) ''Baby Mine'' * (1949) ''Violet Hostage''

Notes

References

Grove Art Online

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
(Jean Fautrier's Dépouille)
Museum of Modern Art
(Jean Fautrier works)
Tate
(Jean Fautrier works)

External links