Gérard Schneider: The Lyrical abstraction as asceticism
In 1955, Herta Wescher, art critic, describes Gérard Schneider's works in these words: "Powerful painting, mastered to the extent that at every step of completion the entire composition is asserted, surprising because the final state continuously retains the virulence of the creative act. Acting as a vehement improvisation, this painting hides the most conscientious arrangement of elements, the most strict reporting control. Based on colour, it starts, however, with linear motifs, but the line has evolved into broad two-hand wide brushstrokes. Such writing outgrows small frames, and it is by filling larger frames that it brings us the assertion of its sovereign force… "
AV Modern & Contemporary offers this autumn a new major exhibition entitled Gérard Schneider and the Lyrical Abstraction.
As a founder of the movement with Soulages and Hartung, he played an active role. Today, he is considered as the main figure of the post-war abstraction which is worth presenting.
Bringing together forty paintings and works on paper, the exhibition will aim to provide an overview of the artist’s career and focus on the grand years of the artist between 1945 and 1975.
The selected works will show the different approaches that he has undertaken. The geometrical structures that prevailed in the first years were replaced by abstract calligraphy, and finally by an expressionist abstraction where moments were captured by movements. The titles are edited with musical connotations by the use of the terms Composition and Opus associated with numbers. Most of the works were never exhibited before.
Gérard Schneider and the lyrical abstraction represent an emblematic aesthetic movement that vindicates perfectly international attention.
