Sold for: $85,250

PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Edmonton

Georges Mathieu was a French abstract painter and art theorist considered one of the originators of European Lyrical Abstraction. He published several manifestos to define his concept of this movement: to achieve autonomy of gesture, using speed of execution to avoid conscious control, eschewing pre-existing forms as a point of reference and avoiding premeditated moves. He also founded the group L’Imaginaire to showcase Lyrical Abstraction.

By the late 1960s Mathieu was using a kind of animated, loose geometry, such as the background grid in Huisne, and he continued to use surging gestures, such as the arc of the partial circle. A charged ruby-red form and a gestural zigzagging line are superimposed on the grid, and a sooty black shadow-form slips out from under it. Energy is sent out from this centre through more lines of red and black, which generate movement. Huisne is a fine example of Mathieu’s work - intuitive and playful, it is a striking arabesque of form.

Mathieu’s importance was recognized in a 1963 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and in a 1978 retrospective at the Grand Palais, also in Paris.

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Comité Mathieu.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars