Simon Hantaï

Simon Hantaï (7 December 1922, Biatorbágy, Hungary – Paris, 12 September 2008; took French nationality in 1966 ) is a painter generally associated with abstract art.

Biography After studying at the Budapest School of Fine Art, He completely disappeared from the public scene during the 1980s and 1990s, "a streak of ethical obstinacy virtually unparalleled in contemporary art" according to Art in America.

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 on May 22, 2013, with more than 130 works from 1949 to 1990s, and a full color illustrated catalog.

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. 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.

Selected works

Mariales (Cloaks) (1960–62). Mariale M.A.4 Red sold for 650,000 euros in 2005.

Private life He is the father of musicians Pierre et Jérôme Hantaï. by Ben Lerner