Hantaï, Simon: Untitled (1973)

Simon Hantai emigrated from Hungary to Paris in 1948 and created his unique oeuvre in France, which belongs to post-war abstract painting. In 1960 he began to make so-called pliage, or folded paintings, a process he saw as a synthesis of the gestures of surrealist automatism and abstract expressionism. He folded and tied the unstretched canvas, then painted the parts that were left exposed. After the acrylic paint had dried, he unfolded and flattened the canvas, revealing the white or off-white areas that had been left raw. Untitled from 1973 is part of the so-called White (Blancs) series, painted between 1973 and 1974. In these works, Hantai brought together more than ten years of artistic experience with the folding technique, which built on the legacy of Surrealism as well as Matisse and Pollock. The repetitive, fragmented, brightly coloured motifs give the canvas a sense of infinity; they create an “all over” surface. In the process of creating the composition, both artistic intent and chance are present. The unfinished and material nature of the works was originally emphasised by the artist by exhibiting his canvases unframed, nailed to the wall. After his earlier monochrome paintings, he here worked with a varied palette of pure and broken colours (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, orange, brown, turquoise, etc.), in conjunction with white and the unpainted ground.

Krisztina Szipőcs