Nicolas Staël’s Unprecedented Retrospective at the MAM
As one of the leading figures on the post-war art scene, Nicolas de Staël never ceased to mystify his work, from his exile after the Russian Revolution to his tragic suicide at the age of 41. The artist, also known as “le prince foudroyé” (The Lighting Prince), is the subject of a tribute by the MAM through its latest exhibition. This retrospective traces his first steps as a figurative painter through a selection of paintings ranging from his textured canvas dating from 1940 to the paintings he produced on the very eve of his death in 1955.
Although he developed his body of work over only a dozen years, Staël renewed his practice constantly in order to explore new roads, thus reflecting his need to destroy everything – which is reflected in his use of incandescent red. By disregarding the trends and quarrels of his time, Staël’s work deliberately overturns the distinction between abstraction and figuration, revealing itself as an urgent pursuit of an ever thicker and more concise art.
This retrospective allows us to follow this pictorial quest step by step, a journey that begins with his youthful travels and first years in Paris and ends with his last months in Antibes. The exhibition brings together a selection of around 200 paintings, drawings, prints and notebooks and features emblematic masterpieces such as the “Parc des Princes”. This unprecedented selection includes important pieces that have rarely, if ever, been exhibited, including fifty works shown for the very first time in a French museum. It’s an opportunity to discover (or rediscover) the painter’s extensive œuvre down to the very last detail!
The exhibition opening took place on Wednesday 13 and brought together Elena Prentice, Fabrice Hergott, Françoise and Jean-Pierre Meyers, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Fabrice Hergott, Alain and Suzanna Flammarion, Laurent Le Bon and the artist’s son, Gustave de Staël, and his children.
Photos: Michael Huard
