France’s Most Esteemed Artist:
Pierre Soulages and His Museum in Rodez
Until yesterday, Pierre Soulages was almost universally acknowledged as France’s greatest living artist. That is, until yesterday, when he died at the age of 102, leaving his wife of 80 years, Colette, 101, a widow.
French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron tweeted, “Beyond the dark, his works are vivid metaphors from which each of us draws hope.”
I had long been aware of Soulages, had been mesmerized by the paintings I had viewed in New York at the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim, and at an extensive show of his work in Madison Avenue’s Dominique Levy Gallery (now LGDR) in 2014.
Some of his earlier paintings reminded me of art projects we did in elementary school. (But in a good way.)
We would cover a sheet of plain construction paper with our favorite Crayola colors and then the teacher would paint over our markings in black. Days later, the black paint dry, we would use pens and pins and coins to scrape away some of the opaque color revealing trails and blots of our original Crayola hues peering through.
Soulages did something similar, covering a canvas in black paint and scraping the material in order to expose blues and reds and browns.
