Georges MATHIEU

Georges Mathieu began painting in 1942. From1944-1945, Georges Mathieu moved towards gestural painting. He created and wasone of the principal thinkers behind Abstraction Lyrique, contrasting theapproach with that of proponents of American Action Painting. In 1950, heproduced his first Tachisme paintings and began giving his paintings titlesdrawn from French history.

Using tubes of colour directly without any priorsketching, he painted his canvases freely and thus took painting somewhere new.He revealed the creative process by painting in public. Described by Malraux asa "western calligrapher", in 1957 he encountered the Japanesetradition during a trip to Japan, where he met with a triumphalreception. 

He then travelled to Brazil, Argentina, Lebanon,Israel, Canada and almost every European country. From 1962 onwards, he becameaware that one of the major duties of artists is to cities and attempted totransform his "language" into a "style". He then creatednew shapes for furniture, jewellery, gave the Manufacture Nationale desGobelins tapestry cartoons, and designed plates for Sèvres. 

From 1985, a real change took place in his work inboth form and substance. It was the "cosmic turning point" thateliminated the central composition, the last vestige of classicism, in favourof a distribution of forms overrunning the entire canvas.  He died on 10June 2012 in Boulogne-Billancourt. His work is currently found in at leastseventy-nine museums and public collections.