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.

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 on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

. Unsatisfied by instruction he thought too rigid, he left to study briefly at the Slade School, which was reputed to be more

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

. He was disappointed again and decided to go it alone, 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 U ...

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 turbul ...

. 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 The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...

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 (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, bo ...

s, nudes, landscapes) in which black dominates. In 1928 he met André Malraux through Castel. Malraux asked Fautrier to illustrate a text of his choice, but copyright issues kept him from using his first choice, Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘’Les Illuminations’’, and he settled instead with Dante’s ''Inferno''. He produced 34 lithographs, 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, where he made his living as a ski instructor and started a jazz club.

World War II and after

Châtenay-Malaby (ancien cimetière) - Jean Fautrier

In 1939, just as

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

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 (), 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 Prussia into one orga ...

. After brief imprisonment, he fled Paris and found refuge in Châtenay-Malabry, 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 ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

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 – 9 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 (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

as well as another major award at the Tokyo Biennale the following year. He died in Châtenay-Malabry 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 Fondation Pierre Gianadda, inaugurated in 1978, administers museums and exhibitions located in Martigny, Switzerland Martigny (; german: Martinach, ; la, Octodurum) is the capital city of the district of Martigny, canton of Valais, Switzerl ...

Martigny Martigny (; german: Martinach, ; la, Octodurum) is the capital city of the district of Martigny, canton of Valais, Switzerland. It lies at an elevation of , and its population is approximately 15000 inhabitants (''Martignerains'' or "Octoduriens ...

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