September 02, 2014

PIERRE SOULAGES' RETROSPECTIVE AT MUSEE SOULAGES




PIERRE SOULAGES’ RETROSPECTIVE AT MUSEE SOULAGES RODEZ
May 31, 2014 – October 5, 2014 




PIERRE SOULAGES’ RETROSPECTIVE AT MUSEE SOULAGES RODEZ
May 31, 2014 – October 5, 2014 
Curators: Benoît Decron, head of heritage conservation, and Pierre Encrevé, Pierre Soulages’ biographer.
The new Soulages Museum opened on 31th May 2014 in Rodez, the home town of the artist Pierre Soulages. The museum will house the extraordinary donations made by Pierre and Colette Soulages to the Greater Rodez Urban Community.
This gift of more than 500 works and documents is the most significant collection ever donated by an artist during his lifetime.
This retrospective will be the first exhibition ever organised in Europe on Soulages’ Outrenoirs.
The exhibition boasts around 30 large-scale Outrenoirs, lent by major museums and foundations in Europe. Pierre Soulages personally participated in the choice of the artworks, to make up a representative range that will complement the museum’s permanent collection, highlighting the first three decades of his work.
This exhibition has been labelled: “Exhibition of National Interest” by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
From 2001, Pierre Soulages was certain that the core of the future museum would be all his works on the stained glass windows he created for the abbey of Conques, both in the concept of the museum and the choice of its architecture. The collection includes his preparatory works for the windows, figurative paintings and walnut-stain works from his youth, as well as his complete printed works.
The museum intends to become a reference point for international modern and contemporary art. To mark the opening, it will stage an exhibition, ‘Pierre Soulages:
The Outrenoir(s) [Ultra-Blacks] in European collections’. Beyond its monographic dimension, it intends to become a place where one will discover the techniques
and mainsprings of artistic creation: the stained-glass windows he made for Conques Abbey will be the showpiece of the museum.
The Soulages Museum is a museum ''in motion''; it has a vast temporary exhibition room and is designed to host events of both national and international scale.
You may visit to read Pierre Soulages interview and to see his different paintings and information of Musee Soulages’ architectural project to click below links.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/08/musee-soulages-design-by-rcr.html






'' PEINTURE 202 x 159 cm - 19 OCTOBRE 2013
Acrylic on Canvas 
Soulages Archives, 2014 
Photo © Vincent Cunillere 




PEINTURE 146 x 97 cm, 3 JUIN 1957 ( DETAIL )
Oil on Canvas




PEINTURE 146 x 97 cm, 3 JUIN 1957
Oil on Canvas




PEINTURE 146 x 97 cm, 3 JUIN 1957 ( DETAIL )
Oil on Canvas




PEINTURE 202 x 143 cm – 3 MARS 2013
Acrylic on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014



Pierre Soulages Dans Son Atelier 1968 © Fritz Pitz 1928-2006




AN ‘’ UNUSUAL ‘’ MUSEUM
Neither a mausoleum nor a monographic chore, the Soulages Museum will be a place for meetings and new experiences. While being a genuine modern and contemporary art museum, it will favour exchanges with similar institutions or foundations, with great freedom in its choices from promising to seasoned artists, through different
themes and links from one historical era to another (the Middle Ages, for instance, whom Soulages holds dear). The museum fits into the European gathering of museums.
The Soulages Museum will be ‘' unusual ‘ according to the painter's words,:
'' It will highligt the process of artistic creation, the role of the unexpected that lies in it, and without using banal teaching methods, I hope it will open the eyes of the public and awake their spirit to understand what art stands for. '' Visitor services will particularly strive to explain the meaning of the artist's know-how and gestures. The audience will explore Pierre Soulages' works in the museum by following an itinerary that combines the painter's history– his biography–with other expressions of his creativity, such as oil paintings, paintings on paper, printed works or stained-glass windows.
The bright rooms with high ceilings will alternate with the darkened rooms with low ceilings to tackle specific topics, including the very first figurative works Soulages made in Rodez, the inspiration he found in the Aveyron, the hanging of artworks, the Walnut Stains, the different techniques of engraving, or the works he did at Conques.
Each aspect of the donation will be associated with its constituent technique. That is why Conques stained-glass windows are a link between monumental medieval heritage and contemporary creation, and act as a catharsis: they are the accurate portrait of the artist. In Conques abbey, Soulages thought of a new light. In Rodez, we must show clearly how we can approach that form of light thanks to experimental witnesses. From matter to thought, with tools and hands.
Benoît Decron,
Chief Curator
Director of the Greater Rodez museums
http://musee-soulages.grand-rodez.com/museum-soulages/










PEINTURE 202x263cm – 30 NOVEMBRE, 1967




PEINTURE 130 x 162 cm - 21 JUILLET 1958
Oil on Canvas, 130 x 162 cm
© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich. Photo : Sandra Pointet
© Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.




PEINTURE 130.2 x 162.5 cm - 27 juillet 1956
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Montreal Museum of
Fine Arts, Montreal




PEINTURE 162 x 114 cm - 28 DECEMBRE 1959
Oil on Canvas 










BROU DE NOIX - 1948
Papier marouflé sur toile - 65 x 50 cm,
Donation Pierre et Colette Soulages
Musée Soulages – Rodez



LITHOGRAPH No: 22, 1969
Lithograph
30 1/2 × 21 1/4 inches - 77.5 × 54 cm
Edition AP/85






UNTITLED - 1957
Etching and aquatint
plate: 21 5/8 x 15 1/4" (55 x 38.8 cm); sheet: 26 x 19 3/4" (66 x 50.1 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos
© 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris












Vitrail de Pierre Soulages pour l’abbatiale de
Conques © Droits réservé






PEINTURE 181 x 162 cm - 26 JANVIER 2014
Acrylic on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014
Photo: © Vincent Cunillère




 ‘’ AN OPEN MUSEUM ‘’
Eight years after Pierre and Colette Soulages' first donation to the Greater Rodez Authority and three and a half years after the laying of the foundation stone, the Soulages Museum will open its doors on May 23th, 2014. The museum is housing the world's largest collection dedicated to the Outrenoir's master. The museum will resemble Pierre Soulages: open to creation in all its forms, and above all open to other artists in order to bring art and culture within the reach of everyone from near and far and to arouse their curiosity.
He said he had suffered from not finding easily a way to nurture his vocation during his childhood in Rodez. Today he is offering his hometown the most wonderful of opportunities. A great opportunity for everyone, whether they be insiders or just curious onlookers, to come and have a look, to learn and love art and culture. A wide open museum both accessible and alive. In a nutshell, the museum will be the antithesis of a dialogue among peers.
And yet it is in that very territory that Pierre Soulages' vocation awoke in him. In his words: '' This is where my taste was shaped. '' At the Fenaille Museum, in front of these statues-menhirs that had survived the passage of 5,000 years. In front of the wide open spaces of the Aubrac or the limestone plateaus of Causses. At Conques, in front of the Romanesque architectural masterpiece of the abbey-church of Sainte-Foy whose stained-glass windows were designed by Pierre Soulages between 1986 and 1994. The museum does not intend to become a mausoleum. Pierre Soulages rejects this idea of a single-artist museum that would be like a monograph. He agreed only if the museum would be open to other creations and emphasized the key-role of the 500 square meter temporary exhibitions' room. He also hoped that this space would serve an educational purpose and establish a link between manufacturing process and artistic goals, between tools and works. A unique concept.
The artist and the councillors wanted the same thing: a museum that would be open to the daily life of Rodez, a town that has just gone through a deep architectural change that stands as a link between the historic center and Bourran modern neighbourhood. The museum will be part not only of that gathering of culture, leisure, sports and educational facilities: movie theatres, municipal halls, gardens and so on... but also near college, Foch highschool, the Amphitheatre and the watersports
centre. This redesigned space will become a new living environment for everyone, locals and visitors, and a lively place where people can meet and share experiences.
The Soulages Museum has been financed by the Greater Rodez Authority (€21,4m net of tax) and the State (€4m), the Midi-Pyrénées Region (€4m) and the Aveyron general council and Rodez town. The museum will also have a wonderful opportunity to show the world most of Rodez handmade masterpieces–an amazing heritage that allowed Rodez town to join the very selective club of ''Art and History Provinces’' territories–and also an ''art de vivre’' cultivated with passion and pleasure. Eventually, the museum will be a proud representative of a region that establishes
strong links to show its most precious treasures.
Christian Teyssèdre,
Chairman of the Greater Rodez Authority
http://musee-soulages.grand-rodez.com/museum-soulages/






 PEINTURE 222 x 400 cm - 3 MARS 1984
Coll. les Abattoirs, Toulouse
© ADAGP 2014. photogr. Auriol-Gineste






PEINTURE 181 x 162 cm - 11 JANVIER 2014
Acrylic on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014
Photo: © Vincent Cunillère






 PEINTURE 99 x 159 cm - 11 OCTOBER 2013
Acrylic on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014
Photo: © Vincent Cunillère










MUSEE SOULAGES RODEZ
DESIGN BY RCR ARCHITECTS


















MUSEE SOULAGES RODEZ












 PEINTURE 100 x 100cm., 14 MARS 1961
Oil on Canvas






PEINTURE 202 x 156 cm - 27 MARS 1961 
Oil on Canvas
 




PEINTURE 97 x 130 cm - 15 AOUT 1961 
Oil on Canvas
 




PEINTURE 130 x 162 cm - 3 AVRIL 1955 
Oil on Linen 


























 PEINTURE  202x159cm   - 5 JUILLET 1966
Oil on Canvas
Donation Pierre et Colette Soulages 
Musée Soulages Rodez © Vincent Cunillère






PEINTURE 195 x 155 cm - 7 FEVRIER 1957
Oil on Canvas






 PEINTURE 157 x 222 cm - 6 AVRIL 2013
Acrylic on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014
Photo: © Vincent Cunillère




 PEINTURE 165 x 74 cm - 30 AOUT 2013
Acrylic on Canvas




PEINTURE 202 x 159 cm - 28 OCTOBER 2013
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
Soulages Archives, 2014
Photo: © Vincent Cunillère














PIERRE SOULAGES
Since his first retrospective exhibition in Hanover, Germany in 1960, Soulages' oeuvre has been exhibited internationally without interruption, most recently with a major 2009 retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris as well as retrospectives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico; Kunstmuseum, Berne; Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo; Museum Fridericianum, Kassel; IVAM-Centro Julio González, Valencia; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montréal; and the National
Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul. In 2001, Soulages became the first contemporary artist to be exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
A highlight of Soulages’ career came in 1986 with a commission from the French Ministry of Culture to create a cycle of stained glass windows for the Romanesque Abbey-Church Sainte-Foy in Conques, France. What Soulages achieved at Conques, over a grueling eight-year period ending in 1994, is nothing less than a total work of art. With the authorities’ decision to re-conceptualize all the windows, the church was purged of its World War II memories, for the windows had been filled by neo-medievalist scenes commissioned in the 1940s under Marechal Petain’s collaborationist government at Vichy. Soulages’ overall scheme effectively liberated the church’s astonishing architecture and transformed it into a site-specific installation. In the glass he developed for this project, Soulages found the perfect
translucent vehicle – in essence, a transmogrified twosided painting – that, as a soft and ever changing grey-white, is equally legible from inside and outside the church. In the 104 windows he created for Sainte-Foy, Soulages rendered a battery of straight and softly arcing black lines that engage the architecture and visitors’ movement through it, as well as the winds and mountains of the surrounding Aveyron. The Sainte-Foy cycle perfectly illustrates the central concern with light that has always suffused Soulages’ abstract paintings, and vividly affirms the strong architectonic urge that had always been present in the artist’s work.
Today Pierre Soulages’ paintings are part of over a hundred museum collections, including the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; the Fogg Art Gallery, Harvard University; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Tate Gallery, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; and the Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro.
http://www.dominique-levy.com/exhibition/pierre-soulages