From 15 to 18 June 2017, Applicat-Prazan will be showing a selection of important paintings at Art Basel which will include works by Jean Fautrier, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Nicolas de Staël, Otto Freundlich, André Masson, Manolo Millarès and Pierre Soulages.

The highlight is a major work by Jean Fautrier, precursor to his Otages series, and titled Les pommes (Le jour et la nuit). Exhibited in most of the important retrospective exhibitions of the Artist, this painting illustrates the art of matter painting by the creator of informal art. The last companion of the Artist, evokes the way the painting, executed between 1940 and 1943, was conceived. “In Montparnasse, Jean dedicated himself to his painting and started this large, brightly coloured, chiaroscuro work on paper laid down on canvas, one of his first matter paintings in which the relief effect produced by the varnish, sometimes mat, sometimes shiny, add a mirror-like optical effect, like snow mounds. The large, thick and single black stroke that outlines the painting accentuates the vividness and brilliance of the colours. Les Pommes, which is probably one of his first in this new style, stunned Jean Paulhan and was André Berne-Joffroy’s favourite, a work they often recommended museums to borrow for their Fautrier exhibitions.”

Jean FAUTRIER (1898 – 1964)
Les Pommes (Le jour et la nuit), 1940-1943
Haute pâte on paper laid down on canvas
80,5 x 115,5 cm