François Morellet (30 April 1926 – 10 May 2016) was a French contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and light artist. His early work prefigured minimal art and conceptual art and he played a prominent role in the development of geometrical

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

and post-conceptual art.

Career

Morellet began to make still-life paintings at the age of 14 as he studied Russian literature in Paris. After completing his studies, he returned to Cholet in 1948, where he continued to paint, now in the spirit of the COBRA movement. After this short period of figurative/representational work, Morellet turned to

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

in 1950 after encountering the Concrete art of Max Bill. Morellet then adopted a pictorial language of simple geometric forms: lines, squares and triangles assembled into two-dimensional compositions. In 1960, he was one of the founders of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), with fellow artists Francisco Sobrino, Horatio Garcia-Rossi, Hugo DeMarco, Julio Le Parc, Jean-Pierre Yvaral (the son of Victor Vasarely), Joël Stein, Vera Molnár and

François Molnár François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter * François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; ...

(the last two left the group shortly after). Morellet began at this time to work with neon tube lighting. From the 1960s on, Morellet worked in various materials (fabric, tape, neon, walls...) and in doing so investigated the use of the exhibition space in terms similar to artists of

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...

and environmental art. He gained an international reputation, especially in Germany and France, and he was commissioned to create work for public and private collections in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and the U.S. One of his works is part of the permanent collection of the Centre for International Light Art (CILA) in Unna, Germany. In 2016/2017, the CILA staged a retrospective of Morellet's Light Art, the last exhibition to be curated by the artist himself, shortly before his death in May 2016.

Work

Morellet's abstract ideal was, he said, tempered by the charming nihilism of Marcel Duchamp. For him, a work of art referred only to itself. His titles are generally sophisticated, show some Duchampian word play, and describe the "constraints" or "rules" that he used to create them. Like other contemporary artists who use constraints and chance (or the aleatory) in their works, such as

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

in music and the Oulipo group in literature, Morellet used rules and constraints established in advance to guide the creation of his works while also allowing chance to play a role in some of his compositions. This dialectic between the rigid rule-based procedure and chance situates his work within the Post-conceptual art category. His rigorous use of geometry tends to create emotionally neutral work, and also placed him close to Minimal art and Conceptual art in his aims. He shared a particular affinity to the American artists Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and Sol LeWitt. * Series: ''Répartitions aléatoires'' ("Chance divisions") from the 1950s * ''Répartition de 16 formes identiques'' - painted after his visit to the Alhambra of Granada * Series: ''Trames'' from the 1950s * Series: ''Désintégrations architecturales'' ("Architectural disintegrations") from 1971 * Series: ''Géométrées'' from 1983 * Series: ''Défigurations'' from 1988 * Series: ''Déclinaisons de pi'' ("Versions of pi") from 1998 File:Album de 10 sérigraphies sur 10 ans 03.jpg File:Album de 10 sérigraphies sur 10 ans 07.jpg File:Album de 10 sérigraphies sur 10 ans 08.jpg File:Album de 10 sérigraphies sur 10 ans 09.jpg

Recognition

* April 10, 2016, the first François Morellet Prize (awarded to a personality for his writings on art) was awarded to

Catherine Millet Catherine Millet (; born 1 April 1948) is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine ''Art Press'', which focuses on modern art and contemporary art. Biography Born in Bois-Colombes, France, she is best known ...

by Philippe Méaille. This prize is awarded every year as part of Les Journées nationales du Livre et du Vin (The National Book and Wine Days) in Saumur ( Loire Valley), in partnership with the Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art. * November 7, 2016, the Centre Georges Pompidou gathers Francois Morellet's friends and accomplices at a lecture-event. * December 13, 2016, the Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art installs "Curved door-to-door" on its facade. * October 6, 2017, the museum of art and history of Cholet dedicates a room to François Morellet in which will be regularly presented different works.

Works in public collections

Kunstmuseum Reutlingen , konkret

Art market

From 2017 until 2020, Morellet's estate worked with Lévy Gorvy before moving to Hauser & Wirth.Alex Greenberger (November 23, 2020)
Estate of Pioneering Abstractionist François Morellet Heads to Hauser & Wirth, Departing Blue-Chip Competitor
'' ARTnews''.

Footnotes

References

* Beate Reifenscheid und Dorothea van der Koelen; Arte in Movimento – Kunst in Bewegung, Dokumente unserer Zeit XXXIV; Chorus-Verlag; Mainz 2011; * * ''Kazimir Malevitch & François Morellet/ Carrément'' Texts by Bernard Marcadé, Jean-Claude Marcadé, François Morellet, Serge Lemoine, Editions Kamel Mennour, 2011. * ''Carrément - Discrètement''. Exhibition catalogue. Text by Christian Skimao. Montpellier, 2001. * Lejeunne, Denis. 2012. ''The Radical Use of Chance in 20th Century Art'', Rodopi Press, Amsterdam, pp. 129–173 * Lemoine, Serge. ''François Morellet''. Waser Verlag: Zurich, 1986. * Lemoine, Serge. ''François Morellet''. Flammarion: Paris, 1996. * ''Morellet.'' Exhibition catalogue. Essays by Dominique Bozo, Bernard Blistène, Catherine Millet, Rudi Oxenaar, Alain Coulange, Johannes Cladders; Interview with Christian Besson. Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1986. * ''Morellet''. Exhibition catalogue. Essays by Jean-François Groulier, Jacqueline Lichtenstein, Thomas McEvilley, Arnauld Pierre; Chronology by Stéphanie Jamet. Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume/Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 2000. * Morellet, François. ''Mais comment taire mes commentaires'' Collections: Ecrits d’artistes. École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1999.

External links

* Projet à sticker
Cneai (National Center for Edition, Art and Images)

Chatou Chatou () is a Communes of France, commune in the Yvelines Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region in north-central France. Chatou is a part of the affluent suburbs of western Paris and is on the northwest ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morellet, Francois 1926 births 2016 deaths Op art French sculptors French male sculptors Minimalist artists French contemporary artists 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters 21st-century French painters 21st-century French male artists People from Cholet