Jean Paulhan, 1884-1968
27 May - 21 Dec 2015
In the secret of modern painting
Curator : Mnam/Cci / Anne Lemonnier
It was in 1942, during the Occupation, that discussion intensified between the writer and editor Jean Paulhan, leading spirit of La Nouvelle Revue Française, and the painter Georges Braque. Paulhan was looking to art for a refuge from the rifts in literature. Not long after, he met Jean Fautrier and Jean Dubuffet, finding in their work the revelation of a “secret” that he sought to expound in his writings on painting. He also wrote about the two foundational experiences that underwrote his understanding of modern art. The first was that of moving about a darkened room, the experience of the real emerging from the dark, with which Paulhan compared the revelation of the “truth” of objects in Cubist works. The second was that of the blind spot, the constitutive self-blindness that makes vision possible, to which he refers Informal Art, where for him lack lies at the heart of painting. Among Paulhan’s works on art were Braque le patron and Fautrier l’enragé, both shown here.
Anne Lemonnier
Curator : Mnam/Cci / Anne Lemonnier
It was in 1942, during the Occupation, that discussion intensified between the writer and editor Jean Paulhan, leading spirit of La Nouvelle Revue Française, and the painter Georges Braque. Paulhan was looking to art for a refuge from the rifts in literature. Not long after, he met Jean Fautrier and Jean Dubuffet, finding in their work the revelation of a “secret” that he sought to expound in his writings on painting. He also wrote about the two foundational experiences that underwrote his understanding of modern art. The first was that of moving about a darkened room, the experience of the real emerging from the dark, with which Paulhan compared the revelation of the “truth” of objects in Cubist works. The second was that of the blind spot, the constitutive self-blindness that makes vision possible, to which he refers Informal Art, where for him lack lies at the heart of painting. Among Paulhan’s works on art were Braque le patron and Fautrier l’enragé, both shown here.
Anne Lemonnier