Abstraction's "hot" current: Lanskoy - Schneider - Riopelle at the M.A.K. Galerie

Abstraction established itself as a genuine aesthetic trend in post-war France. The M.A.K Galerie dedicated a Salon to it, the Salon des Réalités nouvelles, founded in 1946. Auguste Herbin, who was vice-president, embodied a "cold" current, that of geometric abstraction, supported by the Denise René gallery. The "hot" current is represented by the proponents of lyrical abstraction, tachism and informalism, to use Michel Ragon's distinction. It's from this second angle that we present Abstraction parisienne des années 50, at 24 avenue Matignon.

André Lanskoy (1902-1976), the abstract romantic

Our Green Composition dates from the "Carré years" (1944-1961), the period during which André Lanskoy collaborated with the Louis Carré gallery. He developed a pictorial language in which each work is the result of a struggle, a spiritual combat between the painter and the material. This manifested itself in a dominant tonality: one painting = one theme = one color.

Gérard Schneider (1896-1986), the lyricist

Opus 64 B. The canvas is almost 2 metres high. The painter has brushed it energetically, with a broad gesture. Black and blue lighten the underlying colors.

"All the paintings of the 50s sound like thunderclaps," says Georges Boudaille. These were "the glorious years", according to Michel Ragon. The critics were dithyrambic. In 1954, Gérard Schneider represented France at the Venice Biennale.

Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002), nature's documentalist

Jean-Paul Riopelle also took part in the Venice Biennale in 1954, representing Canada. In his abstraction, he claimed a different relationship to nature than André Lanskoy. For him, "contact with nature is documentation" (quoted in Riopelle, 2006, cat. expo., p. 142).

A Parisian by adoption, Jean-Paul Riopelle moved to Paris in 1946. When asked about the immense forests of Quebec, he warms up and responds with the leaf of a tree. The artist is a stickler for detail. He observes meticulously, interested in the hidden appearance of things. In the same way, he superimposes pictorial techniques. Knife painting, drips, brush strokes and brushstrokes create networks of lines that may or may not be untangled.