Abstracting from Nature
As the dust settled across Europe after the Second World War a generation of artists faced the dilemma of how to represent contemporary life.
Caught between the chaos of conflict and the harmonious order of nature, Paris became the centre for a group of trailblazing artists to forge a new visual language based on organic abstraction. Adopting a poetic sensitivity to colour and form, these artists responded to the existential crisis of post-war Europe by recreating the subjective experience of the natural world.
As the inheritors of Jean Arp’s free-flowing forms and Wassily Kandinsky’s spiritual colour palette, these burgeoning movements of Art Informel, Lyrical Abstraction and Tachisme were counterpointed by the contemporary machismo of American Abstract Expressionism.
Artists: Afro; Jean Arp; Roger Bissière; Bram Bogart; Alexander Calder; Anthony Caro; Maurice Estève; Barbara Hepworth; Roger Hilton; Wassily Kandinsky; André Lanskoy; Peter Lanyon; Henry Moore; Antoine Poncet; Serge Poliakoff; Gérard Ernest Schneider; Maria Vieira da Silva; Mark Tobey.
Afro, Reclining Figure, 1956- Roger Bissière, Soleil horizontal - Composition 409, 1960
- Bram Bogart, Les Blanc, 1960
- Hans Hartung, T 1971-E43, 1971
- Roger HiltonUntitled, 1962Oil on canvas44 x 50 in, 111.8 x 127 cmSigned 'Hilton' and dated 'Oct, 62' versoSold
- Vassily Kandinsky, Drawing for 'Each for Itself', 1934
- Vassily Kandinsky, Au milieu, 1942
- Vassily Kandinsky, Pointille, May 1935
- André Lanskoy, Lueurs incertaines, 1947
- Peter Lanyon, Anticoli Snow, c.1953
- Janos Mattis-Teutsch, Composition (Sens), c.1920
- Serge Poliakoff, Composition abstraite, 1961
- Antoine PoncetGaillarde, 2011Black marble from Belgium (pedestal in green granite)27 x 9 7/8 x 9 7/8 in, 68.5 x 25 x 25 cm
Pedestal (4 x 10 5/8 in, 10 x 27 cm) - Antoine PoncetVue de dos, 2000Bronze patina31 1/8 x 13 3/8 x 7 7/8 in, 79 x 34 x 20 cm
Pedestal (23 5/8 x 9 7/8 x 11 3/4 in, 60 x 25 x 30 cm) - Gérard Ernest Schneider, Opus 384, 1950
- Mark Tobey, Meanders, 1968
