Jean Degottex

Jean Degottex (Sathonay-Camp 25 February 1918–Paris 9 December 1988) was a French abstract painter, known in particular for his initial proximity to the lyrical abstraction movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered an important artist of the abstraction movement in the second half of the twentieth century and a significant inspiration for contemporary art. Degottex was particularly inspired by East Asian calligraphy and Zen Philosophy to achieve the erasure of the creative subject.

Life and art Jean Degottex was born in Sathonay-Camp and spent his childhood in Lyon. Coming from a modest background, he was almost self-taught. At the age of fifteen, he moved to Paris with his parents, quit school and began to earn his living. In Paris, he made contact with the libertarian circles of the 1930s and occasionally practiced drawing in the academies of Montparnasse. He served in the military in Tunisia and Algeria from 1939 to 1941, the years during which he painted his first figurative paintings, under the influence of Fauvism.

The period from 1956 to 1963 was particularly fruitful in Degottex's career. It is also the best known to the public. During those years, he painted large-scale works, often in series with the same idea used repeatedly: suite Ashkenazi (1957), suite Serto (March–April, November 1957), suite des Hagakure (November 1957), les 18 Vides (1959), suite des Roses (1960), suite des Alliances (1960), les 7 Metasignes (1961), and Jshet (1962).

During this time, he experienced tragedy when his daughter, Frédérique, died in an accident at the age of 16. After a year of mourning, Degottex resumed his series: Écritures, with the following works: the suites Rose-Noire (August 1964), Suite Obscure (November–December 1964), Metasphère (1966), ETC (December 1964 / March 1967) and Horsphères (1967). From 1966 until his death, he produced a wider collection of work in Gordes, in the Vaucluse region, where from the early 1970s, he lived in summers with Beslon.

From 1972 to 1976, he held several solo exhibitions at the Galerie Germain. In particular, he exhibited the Médias series. The works in the series usually contain two areas of separated color: a plain surface in matte black acrylic and a lower part in Chinese ink wash.

He worked more and more with paper material: the tearing technique, for example, revealing this texture (seriés d’ARR rouges, puis blancs). The Germain Gallery also exhibited his Papiers Pleins (1974–1975), papers glued and peeled in horizontal stripes, and his Papiers pleins Obliques (1976) with incisions raised by diagonals.

Exhibitions after death Degottex. Reports 77–81, texte by Pierre Buraglio, Galerie de France, Paris, 1990 Signes et Métasignes, texte by Renée Beslon, Carré d'Art, Nîmes, 1992 Papiers-Reports, Galerie Sablon, Paris, 1993 Médias, texte de Geneviève Breerette, Galerie Rabouan-Moussion, Paris, 1996 Degottex, Espace Fortant Sète, 1997 Reports, texte by Maurice Benhamou, Galerie Regard, Paris 1997 La révolution continue, Frac Bourgogne, Dijon, 2000 Œuvres 78–83, textes by Hubert Besacier and Maurice Benhamou, Maison de la culture de Bourges, 2003 Degottex 73–86, textes by Hubert Basacier et Maurice Benhamou, Carré Saint Vincent, Orléans, 2005 Degottex, 58–85, texte by Pierre Wat, Art Paris, Galerie l'Or du Temps, 2007 Jean Degottex, textes by M. Benhamou, B. Heidsieck, R. Mabin, Pierre Wat, directed by A. Cariou, musée des beaux-arts de Quimper, 2008 Musée du monastère royal de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, 2009 Musée des beaux-arts, Évreux, 2009 Galerie Pascal Lainé, présentation Dominique Bollinger, Ménerbes, Vaucluse, 2011 Galerie Bernard Bouche, Paris, 2013 Vide-matière, Galerie Jacques Lévy, Paris, 2013 Jean Degottex, du signe à l'écriture, de l'écriture à la ligne, texte by Pierre Wat, galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, 2013 Frac Bourgogne, Dijon, 2014 Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, 2015

Rennes, Frac Bretagne Dijon, Musée des beaux-arts Évreux, Musée d'Évreux Colmar, Musée Unterlinden Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble Marseille, Musée Cantini Nantes, Musée des beaux-arts Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou Fonds national d'art contemporain Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght Toulon, Musée d'art de Toulon Austria Vienna, Museum of Modern Art Belgium Bruxelles, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Liège, musée des beaux-arts United States Minneapolis Institute of Arts New York City, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Israel Jerusalem, Israel Museum Japan Osaka, Gutai Gallery Kurashiki, Ōhara Museum of Art Netherlands Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant collection Sweden Malmö, Konsthall

Representative Artworks