Room 7

He is a French painter and sculptor of the post-cubist, abstract style. His main inspiration comes from the School of Paris and cubism. Paintings signed G. Tesson or with the monogram G.T. have appeared on the market, especially in the Netherlands, with a rigorous and professional workmanship, and a geometric trend. Some, colorful, show a post-cubist spirit and are reminiscent of Léger, Metzinger or Hayden; others, abstract and highly constructed, in grey, ocher and brown tones, recall the austere order of Ben Nicholson.

Born in Jarvik (Ukraine). He was a Cubist, Constructivist and Neo-Primitivist painter and designer. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in his city and in 1912 went to the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow. In 1913 he joined the Budiak group and in 1914 returned to the Jarvik School. In 1918 he founded the League of Seven, which organised an exhibition. In 1920 he directed the art section of the Ukrainian office of the Russian Agency and was a decorator for the Red Ukraine agitprop movement. In 1925 he became a member of the Ukrainian Revolutionary Art Association. In 1928 he designed the magazine Avantgarde, as well as covers for books and magazines, and interiors. In the 1940s he was a professor at the National Institute of Art in Kharkov. He took part in many international exhibitions: Leipzig 1922 (gold medal), Paris 1925, Cologne 1928; in Kharkov, a solo exhibition in 1962 and retrospectives in 1969 and 1994. He was one of the most important constructivists in Ukraine and one of the best designers of his generation; his work in the form of posters, political propaganda and advertising is particularly of note. His works are in museums and collections in Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Born in Budapest (Hungary). From 1904 to 1906 he studied at the Royal National School of Arts and Crafts of Hungary with Kimnach Laszlo; he met the sculptor Joseph Csaky. In Paris he studied at the Académie de La Palette with Henri Le Fauconnier and moved towards Cubism. He entered Jean Metzinger’s studio and exhibited at the Autumn Salon and at the Société des Artistes Indépendants, where he met Archipenko and Léger. He also produced illustration, posters and furniture design. In World War I he served in Bizerta, Tunis and Thessaloniki; he continued to draw and paint watercolours in vivid colours, inspired by the new landscapes. In 1919 he exhibited at the Exposition des artistes d’Orient in Athens. In 1922 he became a French citizen. Jacques Doucet, a collector and designer of jewellery, asked him to participate in the decoration of his villa in Neuilly. In 1923, he exhibited in a group exhibition at Léonce Rosenberg’s Galerie de L’Effort Moderne; in 1925, at the International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts, already in the ranks of Art Deco, and in 1928 at the Galerie de la Renaissance. In 1930 he joined the French Union of Modern Artists. In 1939 he moved to Oyonnax (France), where he taught art and eventually died in obscurity. He was rediscovered in several exhibitions on Art Deco; his work can be found in many public and private collections.

One of the protagonists of the Belgian avant-garde, he was born in Diegem (Belgium) and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he graduated in 1917 with the highest distinction and met Maes, Flouquet, Baugniet and Magritte. Between 1917 and 1919 he developed Symbolism. From 1917 he took part in various group exhibitions; in 1918, together with Magritte, he developed applied arts as a designer for Peters-Lacroix’s wallpaper factory, an experience that led him from Fauvism to geometric abstraction. In 1920 he joined the La Plastique Pure movement. In 1922 he co-founded the magazine 7 Arts and with Magritte wrote the manifesto L’art pur. Défense de l’estéthique, influenced by Le Corbusier, Ozenfant and Reverdy’s cubist theories. Inspired by Baumeister and purists, he abandoned figuration for abstraction; he geometrically evoked the world of machine and technology. In 1918 he exhibited his work for the first time at l’Effort Moderne, a meeting place for Cubists since World War II; there he met Marinetti, Van Doesburg, Léger and Duchamp. In 1926, thanks to Duchamp, he participated in the exhibitions of the Katherine Dreyer Corporation in America and was invited by Moholy-Nagy to teach at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, an offer he refused. He received a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925). In 1926 he created the first “surrealist” and “organic” abstractions, before Ernst. In 1928 he exhibited at Der Sturm. He represented Belgium at the 1948 and 1954 Venice Biennials. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels organised a major retrospective; his works can be seen in the MoMA, the Berardo collection in Lisbon, the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Museum of Fine Arts of Ghent, National d’Art Moderne of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris or the Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Antwerp and Brussels. His paintings, sculptures and works on paper have been exhibited in museums such as Leiden’s Lakenhal and London’s Tate Modern.

Born in Mol (Belgium), painter and designer of applied arts, he belongs to the first generation of Belgian abstract artists. He attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he met Flouquet, Magritte and Servranckx. Once the war was over, he experimented with Neo-Impressionism, Futurism and Post-Cubism; he soon rejected figuration in favour of geometric and biomorphic art. In 1920 he joined the avant-garde group Art Centre in Antwerp; that year he took part in the Exposition Internationale d’Art Moderne in Geneva with Cockx, Magritte and Peeters, in 1923 in Les arts belges d’esprit nouveau, at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels, and in 1925 in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Monza. In 1922 he signed (as the only Belgian) the De Stijl manifesto. He was co-founder of the revolutionary group 7 Arts. In 1927, an article in the eponymous magazine described his work as la plastique pure, a categorically concrete art, an extreme evolution of Cubism. At that time he was teaching at the Bauhaus. Retrospectives have been dedicated to him: Antwerp 1992, Brussels 2007. He has work in the Archives of Modern Architecture in Brussels, the MoMA in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent, and in the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the Tate Modern in London and many others.

Signed and dated, plus title, on the back, which also bears the label of the exhibition Vers une plastique pure, Les premiers abstraits belges / 1918-1930, in Brussels. Provenance: private collection in Bruselas and private collection in Berlin. Exhibited at Vers une plastique pure, Les premiers abstraits belges / 1918-1930, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1972.

 

Signed and dated upper left; the same plus title on the back. Provenance: private collection in Brussels and private collection in Berlin.

 

Signed and dated bottom right: MARC EEMANS XXIV. The back bears the label (upper left) of the exhibition The Planar Dimension, celebrated in New York. Provenance: Neyrinck collection (Sint-Martens-Latem); later, Carl László collection and private collection in Munich, from where it passed to Mr and Mrs Polo collection (Brussels). Exhibited at The Planar Dimension, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1979.

In 1924, Eemans began a series of works, both reliefs painted on board and oils on canvas, where we can see the connection with the group 7 Arts with their advocacy of reason in the arts and their conception of painting as something close, if not subordinated, to architecture. In October 1978, Eemans expained the title he gave to all them, “kallomorphose”, in a letter to Margit Rowell, author of the catalogue of the exhibition The Planar Dimension, celebrated the following year at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; he says that the created it by analogy with “metamorphose” and “anamorphose”, and reminds that the Grrek work kalós means “beuty”.

Belgian painter, poet and art critic, born in Termonde (Belgium). Studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he met Victor Servranckx, who taught him the principles of non-figurative art. At the age of 15 he joined the Belgian avant-garde group 7 Arts. His early revolutionary works include Constructivist assemblages and non-figurative paintings meticulously balanced in solemn and subtle harmonies of colour, prefiguring those of Mark Rothko. In 1925 he began to move away from non-figurative art and became Belgium’s first Surrealist painter, before Magritte. Exhibiting with Salvador Dalí, he also became friends with members of the Societé du Mystère, a Belgian Surrealist group. His paintings from this period are inspired by the spiritual qualities of the Pre-Raphaelites, the German Romantics and the Symbolists. In 1939 he exhibited in the Indépendants at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Since then, his works have been exhibited in many places, including the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. As a poet and writer he collaborated with the Surrealist magazine Distances, which was directed from Paris by Camille Goeman, who was the first to deal with Dalí’s work. Once at the heart of the ideological events of the Surrealist group, he decided to abandon it in order to develop his solo experiences, but remained friends with Goemans, Magritte and Mesens. His work can be found in public collections such as those of the Belgian Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels and Antwerp. Singed and dated on the back, bottom left: MARC. EEMANS.XXV. Provenance: Carl László collection, Basel; later, Galerie von Bartha in the same city and Bernet collection, Munich.