Simon Hantaï (7 December 1922,
Biatorbágy,
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
–
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, 12 September 2008; took
French nationality in 1966) is a painter generally associated with
abstract art.
Biography
After studying at the
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
School of Fine Art, he traveled through
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 ...
on foot and moved to France in 1948.
André Breton wrote the preface to his first exhibition catalogue in Paris, but in 1955 Hantaï broke with the
surrealist group over Breton's refusal to accept any similarity between the surrealist technique of
automatic writing and
Jackson Pollock's methods of
action painting
Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical ...
.
A retrospective of his work was held at the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
in 1976, and in 1982 he represented France at the
Venice Biennale.
A representative collection of Hantaï's works is held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
A Simon Hantaï Retrospective opened at the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
on May 22, 2013, with more than 130 works from 1949 to 1990s, and a full color illustrated catalog.
His sons are the musicians
Marc,
Jérôme and
Pierre Hantaï.
Art practice – The folding method
Hantaï began creating pliage paintings in 1960, conceiving of the process as a marriage between Surrealist automatism and the allover gestures of Abstract Expressionism. The technique dominated the work he made during the rest of his career, re-emerging in diverse forms—sometimes as a network of crisp creases of unpainted canvas spanning the composition, and at other times as a monochrome mass manifesting in the center of an unprimed canvas. His technique of "pliage" (folding): the canvas is first folded in various forms, then painted with a brush, and unfolded, leaving apparent blank sections of the canvas interrupted by vibrant splashes of color. The technique was inspired by the marks left folding on his mother’ apron.
From 1967 to 1968 he worked on the Meuns series where he studies the theme of the figure. ''Meun'' is the name of a small village in the
Forest of Fontainebleau where the artist lived starting 1966. Hantaï stated: "It was while working on the Studies that I realized what my true subject was – the resurgence of the ground underneath my painting." In contrast with the Meun (1967–68), the figure, in the Studies (1969), is absorbed and the white detaches from being the background and becomes dynamic.
''Mariales (Cloaks)'' (1960–62)
''Meuns'' (1967–68)
''Etudes (Studies)'' (1969)
''Blancs (the Whites)'' (1973–74)
''Tabulas'' (from 1974)
''Laissées (Leftovers)''(1981–1994)
References
Selected bibliography
New York Times Obituary of Simon Hantaï* [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55f9139fe4b09fd619481da6/t/56da3ca6e32140a3346b9977/1457142952515/2010_SH_Hantai-and-Warhol-the-Fate-of-Modern-Art-in-the-Post-Second-WWII.pdf Rodgers, Paul, "Simon Hantaï & Andy Warhol – The Fate of Modern Art in the Post-Second World War Era" 4/1/10.]
*Rodgers, Paul,
The Resurgent Ground: Simon Hantaï” ''The Modern Aesthetic'', 2017.
*Rodgers, Paul,
Pablo Picasso , Simon Hantaï: Drama Shared, Cubism and the Fold'' 9W Publications, 2020.
Cochran, Samuel, "Simon Hantaï's Abstract Paintings At Paul Kasmin Gallery, Centre Pompidou," ''Architectural Digest,'' 5/7/13."Simon Hantaï," ''Time Out New York,'' 4/24/13.Ostrow, Saul, "Reviews: Simon Hantaï," ''Art in America,'' 9/11/11.An essay on Hantaïby art historian Molly Warnock
* Warnock, Molly. ''Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting''. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020.
by
Ben Lerner
Dominique Fourcade, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Alfred Pacquement, Jean Coyner. ''Simon Hantaï'', Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2013.Archives Simon Hantaï
External links
*
Simon Hantaï in the French public collections of modern and contemporary art.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hantai, Simon
1922 births
2008 deaths
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French male painters
21st-century French painters
21st-century French male artists
Hungarian painters
Hungarian emigrants to France
Naturalized citizens of France