Jean Messagier
Parigi, 1920 - Montbeliard, Francia, 1999
Beginning in 1964, Messagier's canvases are characterized by large circles, formed by wide strips of fluid color then dried, and by circles knotted and reknotted on top of each other and entangled. Messagier's art constitutes a formidable balance between graphism and textural Informalism, between celebration of nature and abstraction. In the 1980s numerous museums paid tribute to his work with exhibitions and events: 1980, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, "Le parcours d'un peintre 1949-1980"; 1981-82, Grand Palais, Paris "Messagier rétrospective"; 1985, Musée d'Art Contemporain Dunkirk, "Oeuvres choisies entre 1945 et 1985"; 1987, Paris, Art Centre, "Messagier rétrospective 1937-1987."
He began drawing and painting in watercolor in the French countryside around 1940; in parallel he completed his secondary studies at Montbéliard boarding school. In 1942 he entered the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where he had Oudot, Brianchon, Legueult, and Desnoyer as professors. In 1944 he married ceramicist Marcelle Baumann and settled in Paris. From 1946 to 1948 he travels through Italy and to Algeria. In 1967 he stays in Cuba. He first exhibited at the Salon des Moins de Trente Ans, in Paris, in 1941. Also in the French capital he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne (1947 and 1948); the Salon de Mai (1948); the Salon d'Octobre (1949, 1950, 1951) of which he was one of the founders; and the Salons des Réalités Nouvelles. Between 1946 and 1948 he visited Tuscany, Emilia, and Umbria where he copied the great masters Piero della Francesca, Giotto, and Frà Angelico.
In 1947 his first solo exhibition at Galerie Arc-en-ciel in Paris takes place.
The two-year period 1948-49 is a hinge period in which the artist floods the works with light, uses perspective, modeling, contours.
His friendship with Charles Estienne introduced him to the coterie of other painters of his generation and enabled him to participate in group exhibitions, particularly those of the new Ecole de Paris at the Galerie de Babylone (1952).
In his first major work, Corteo (1947), untethered from the hesitations and influences of his beginnings, there already appear what will become the constant characteristics of his future works: fluidity of space, light and color, where recognizable form dissolves in favor of only the forms that evoke emotions.
A change of course can be seen beginning in 1954; in the new works he uses an impalpable material-color, dried to the limit of perceptible modulation, enclosed within barely allusive lines of the horizon. From 1955 to 1956 date works founded on rectilinear and orthogonal structures: From One Shore to the Other, Promenade, Spring Heights, July. In the paintings of this period Messagier introduces a strong gestural style, which will become increasingly important and culminate in the late 1950s.
In the 1960s he participated in numerous exhibitions: "Comparaisons"; "Sculpteurs d'aujourd'hui" (1962); "Peinture informelle" in 1967 together with Fautrier, Hartung, Mathieu, Riopelle, Tobey and Wols; "Une Aventure de l'art abstrait," Musée Galliera and Musée de Nantes; Collective with Alechinsky, Moser, Tapies - Kunsthalle Bern; Venice Biennale (1962); Dokumenta in Kassel (1964); São Paulo Biennial in Brazil (1965); "Dix ans d'art vivant"- Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence (1967); "La peinture française à l'Exposition Internationale de Montréal"; to name but a few. There were also numerous solo exhibitions all over the world.
In 1963 Galerie Schoeller and Galerie Bernheim Jeune paid tribute to him with the retrospective "15 années de peinture."
Beginning in 1964 Messagier's canvases are characterized by large circles, formed by wide strips of fluid color then dried, and by circles knotted and reknotted on top of each other and entangled.
Clearly aware of the danger of mannerism involved in an expression based on manual technique, he takes care that his gestures are exercised only from deep feeling, and are always based on genuine emotion. Messagier's art constitutes a formidable balance between graphism and textural Informalism, between celebration of nature and abstraction.
In the 1980s numerous museums paid tribute to his work with exhibitions and events: 1980, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, "Le parcours d'un peintre 1949-1980"; 1981-82, Grand Palais, Paris "Messagier rétrospective"; 1985, Musée d'Art Contemporain Dunkirk, "Oeuvres choisies entre 1945 et 1985"; 1987, Paris, Art Centre, "Messagier rétrospective 1937-1987."
From April to August 2006 his works were in demand by the Musée de Luxembourg in Paris for the exhibition "L'envolée lyrique," the first detailed and comprehensive exhibition on the theme of lyrical abstraction. The event was accompanied by the publication of a comprehensive catalog illustrating more than a hundred works.
Several exhibitions have been dedicated to him in recent years: in 2009 at Galerie Dock-Sud, Sète and at Galerie Lerock-Granoff in Paris; in 2011 at Artothèque ASCAP in Montbéliard and in 2013 in Paris at Galerie Bernard Ceysson; a major solo exhibition entitled Jean Messagier, Tous les sexes du printemps was organized by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole in 2019.
His works are in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Museums and places housing his works:
Belfort, Besançon, Dijon (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Dole, Grenoble, Marseille (Musée Cantini), Montbéliard (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Paris (Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville, Biblioteque Nationale, CNAC), Saint Etienne (Musée Municipal d'Art) - France
Seoul, Korea (Museum of Modern Art)
Skopie, Macedonia (Gallery of Modern Art)
Brussels, Belgium (Royal Library)
Eilat (Museum of Modern Art), Jerusalem (Museum of Israel) - Israel
Montréal, Canada (Musée d'Art Contemporain)
New York (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art), Humlebaek (Louisiana Museum), Cincinnati - United States
Eindhoven, Netherlands (Stedeliijk Van Abbemus)
Geneva, Switzerland (Museum of Art and History)
Bibliography:
Messagier, Les estampes et les sculptures, Yves Rivière, Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1975 ; E.L. Smith, Arte Oggi, Dall’Espressionismo astratto agli anni ’90, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1989; L. Harambourg, L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965, Neuchâtel, Ides & Calendes, 1993; J. Jacques Fernier, Messagier, Magicien d’imaginaires, Editons Musée Courbet, Ornans, 1997.
© Jean Messagier, by SIAE 2023
In 1947 his first solo exhibition at Galerie Arc-en-ciel in Paris takes place.
The two-year period 1948-49 is a hinge period in which the artist floods the works with light, uses perspective, modeling, contours.
His friendship with Charles Estienne introduced him to the coterie of other painters of his generation and enabled him to participate in group exhibitions, particularly those of the new Ecole de Paris at the Galerie de Babylone (1952).
In his first major work, Corteo (1947), untethered from the hesitations and influences of his beginnings, there already appear what will become the constant characteristics of his future works: fluidity of space, light and color, where recognizable form dissolves in favor of only the forms that evoke emotions.
A change of course can be seen beginning in 1954; in the new works he uses an impalpable material-color, dried to the limit of perceptible modulation, enclosed within barely allusive lines of the horizon. From 1955 to 1956 date works founded on rectilinear and orthogonal structures: From One Shore to the Other, Promenade, Spring Heights, July. In the paintings of this period Messagier introduces a strong gestural style, which will become increasingly important and culminate in the late 1950s.
In the 1960s he participated in numerous exhibitions: "Comparaisons"; "Sculpteurs d'aujourd'hui" (1962); "Peinture informelle" in 1967 together with Fautrier, Hartung, Mathieu, Riopelle, Tobey and Wols; "Une Aventure de l'art abstrait," Musée Galliera and Musée de Nantes; Collective with Alechinsky, Moser, Tapies - Kunsthalle Bern; Venice Biennale (1962); Dokumenta in Kassel (1964); São Paulo Biennial in Brazil (1965); "Dix ans d'art vivant"- Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence (1967); "La peinture française à l'Exposition Internationale de Montréal"; to name but a few. There were also numerous solo exhibitions all over the world.
In 1963 Galerie Schoeller and Galerie Bernheim Jeune paid tribute to him with the retrospective "15 années de peinture."
Beginning in 1964 Messagier's canvases are characterized by large circles, formed by wide strips of fluid color then dried, and by circles knotted and reknotted on top of each other and entangled.
Clearly aware of the danger of mannerism involved in an expression based on manual technique, he takes care that his gestures are exercised only from deep feeling, and are always based on genuine emotion. Messagier's art constitutes a formidable balance between graphism and textural Informalism, between celebration of nature and abstraction.
In the 1980s numerous museums paid tribute to his work with exhibitions and events: 1980, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, "Le parcours d'un peintre 1949-1980"; 1981-82, Grand Palais, Paris "Messagier rétrospective"; 1985, Musée d'Art Contemporain Dunkirk, "Oeuvres choisies entre 1945 et 1985"; 1987, Paris, Art Centre, "Messagier rétrospective 1937-1987."
From April to August 2006 his works were in demand by the Musée de Luxembourg in Paris for the exhibition "L'envolée lyrique," the first detailed and comprehensive exhibition on the theme of lyrical abstraction. The event was accompanied by the publication of a comprehensive catalog illustrating more than a hundred works.
Several exhibitions have been dedicated to him in recent years: in 2009 at Galerie Dock-Sud, Sète and at Galerie Lerock-Granoff in Paris; in 2011 at Artothèque ASCAP in Montbéliard and in 2013 in Paris at Galerie Bernard Ceysson; a major solo exhibition entitled Jean Messagier, Tous les sexes du printemps was organized by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole in 2019.
His works are in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Museums and places housing his works:
Belfort, Besançon, Dijon (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Dole, Grenoble, Marseille (Musée Cantini), Montbéliard (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Paris (Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville, Biblioteque Nationale, CNAC), Saint Etienne (Musée Municipal d'Art) - France
Seoul, Korea (Museum of Modern Art)
Skopie, Macedonia (Gallery of Modern Art)
Brussels, Belgium (Royal Library)
Eilat (Museum of Modern Art), Jerusalem (Museum of Israel) - Israel
Montréal, Canada (Musée d'Art Contemporain)
New York (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art), Humlebaek (Louisiana Museum), Cincinnati - United States
Eindhoven, Netherlands (Stedeliijk Van Abbemus)
Geneva, Switzerland (Museum of Art and History)
Bibliography:
Messagier, Les estampes et les sculptures, Yves Rivière, Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1975 ; E.L. Smith, Arte Oggi, Dall’Espressionismo astratto agli anni ’90, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1989; L. Harambourg, L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965, Neuchâtel, Ides & Calendes, 1993; J. Jacques Fernier, Messagier, Magicien d’imaginaires, Editons Musée Courbet, Ornans, 1997.
© Jean Messagier, by SIAE 2023
