Property from a Distinguished European Family Collection
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25. Jean Fautrier Construction Rectiligne, 1958 oil and pigment on paper laid on canvas 54 x 65 cm (21 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.) Signed and dated ‘Fautrier 58’ on the lower right. Estimate £120,000-180,000 $174,000-261,000 €160,000-239,000 ♠ Provenance Galleria L’Attico, Rome Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner, 1960s Literature P. Bucarelli, Jean Fautrier, Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1960, no. 436, p. 366-367 (illustrated) This work will be included in the forthcoming Jean Fautrier Catalogue Raisonné being prepared by Marie-José Lefort, Geneva.
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Fautrier’s oeuvre was one that consistently strived for a highly expressive impasto. The artist would attempt to challenge the traditional painting methods by applying heavy layers of paint and pigment on paper before laying it on to the canvas. In 1956, two years before the execution of the present lot, Fautrier worked on his renowned series of partisan heads victims from the Hungarian Revolution; these semi abstract works display wounded heads and bodies. During the following years, the French painter moves on to a purer, happier abstraction. He seems to be more interested in his own interaction with the paint than with the subject. Construction Rectiligne is a wonderful example of Fautrier’s obsession with the materiality of the painting. The thickly impasted oil on paper is scratched in rhythmic vertical lines. While viewing this work one cannot stay in the abstraction that the title suggests for too long. There is an undeniable link between the bodily presence of the paint and violence exerted on it. The colour as well, reminiscent of a bruised body contributes to the pitiful and morbid feeling for the painting.
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