(Couterne, 1904 – Paris, 1987)
Complexe, 1938
India ink and ink wash on paper
Signed and dated lower right Hélion 38
24.6 x 32 cm
Provenance :
- Galerie Karl Flinker, Paris
- Rachel Adler Gallery, New York
- Private collection, Paris
Exhibitions :
- Hélion Dessins 1930-1978, travelling exhibition :
. MNAM / Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, April 1979, reproduced in catalog p. 25
. National Gallery of Athens, Athens, summer 1979
- Jean Hélion Abtraktion und Mythen des Alltags, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Gouachen 1925-1983, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, August 28 - October 21, 1984, described under no. 71 and reproduced in catalog p. 190.
- Hélion Peintures et Dessins 1925-1983, MAM /Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, November 15, 1984 - January 6, 1985, described under no. 68 and reproduced in the catalog under no. 67, p. 79
- Hélion, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, February 1985
Literature :
Hélion by Philippe Dagen, ed. Hazan, Paris, 2004, described and reproduced in color under no. 79, p. 134
Certificate of authenticity by Karl Flinker, Paris, dated November 26, 1987.
Jean Hélion was one of the pioneers of Abstraction, which he introduced to the United States in the 1930s. He was one of the founding members of the first French avant-garde movement devoted to radically abstract art (Art concret), then an active member of the Abstraction-Création movement (1931-1936). At the dawn of the Second World War, his art evolved towards a personal figuration with simplified forms, then towards resolutely figurative painting.
‘I wanted to let my abstract art develop towards its end, which I accepted, towards a magnificent concordance between modernism and classicism’. Jean Hélion, in A perte de vue, published in 1996 with Choses revues.
Complexe, created in 1938, is a perfect illustration of the artist's words. It is an abstract work with modelled, simplified forms suggesting volumes in a space delimited and structured by the interplay of vertical and horizontal lines. However, it is clear that this is a view of the studio, with a still life to the right of the composition.
Complexe can be compared with two of Jean Hélion's masterpieces: Figures jumelles, 1938 and Figure tombée, 1939, in which elements that had already appeared in Complexe can be seen quite clearly.
The sense of these paintings is that of a fall, marking an abandonment and a radical turning point in Jean Hélion's art.
Jean HELION
Twin Figures, 1938
Oil on canvas
131.1 x 175.3 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Jean HELION
Figure tombée, 1939
Huile sur toile
126.2 x 164.3 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou, MNAM, Paris
