Nicolas de Staël: Lignes de force. Éclats de lumière (1945-1949)

Published on the occasion of Nicolas de Staël: Lignes de force. Éclats de lumière (1945-1949) at Skarstedt, Paris, this catalogue includes full plate images, installation images, an essay in both French and English by Pierre Wat, and a personal note by curator Victor Skarstedt.

Featuring sixteen important paintings from this period, the exhibition highlights the turning point that marked the beginning of Staël's artistic maturity. While it has often been overshadowed by the vibrant palettes of the 1950s, the period from 1945 to 1949 represents a fertile creative moment in the artist's career. The aim of this exhibition is to highlight the fundamental importance of these years in understanding the resulting body of work. At a time when abstraction was at the center of artistic debate, Staël set himself apart from the art scene still strongly influenced by the modern masters Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Léger, freely blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. As evidenced by his first exhibition Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger in 1944, alongside Domela, Kandinsky and Magnelli, Staël set himself apart from his contemporaries through his velvety palette; dark, dramatic compositions; and use of tangled forms interrupted here and there by bursts of light from deep within the canvas, like stained-glass windows.