Pierre Soulages

Pierre Soulages – Discovered in Paris by Hans Hartung and Francis Picabia

Pierre Soulages was born on 24 December 1919 in the southern French city of Rodez. That was the first time, for his second birth gave him painting, a love to which he remained true his whole life. He lost his biological father, a coach builder at the age of five. During the Second World War he avoided conscripted labour in Germany by using false papers to pass himself off as a winegrower from Montpellier. As soon as the war ended, Pierre Soulages moved to Paris and concentrated completely on painting which quickly made him an important European counterpart to the American Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. He was discovered by his famous contemporaries Hans Hartung and Francis Picabia and in 1948 took part in his first exhibition – in Germany, of all places, in Stuttgart, where the theme was ‘French Abstract Painting’. Pierre Soulage always felt a little like the ‘baby’ in the art scene: he was the youngest, who always had to first prove himself, and often had trouble connecting with his peers.

Black and blacker: The ‘Outrenoirs’ as trademark

Even as a child, Pierre Soulages was fascinated by the contrast of black and white. In order to emphasise the white of a piece of paper he applied black paint: “making snow”, the little Pierre called it. The big Pierre stuck to black, in which he saw the most active of all colours because it made all the other colours really light up. Soulages soon spent no further time on these other colours; as a child he had already favoured using black, and from 1979 onwards, only used black, creating pictures from shimmering, glossy black which he called ‘Outrenoirs’ and which would become his trademark. The origins of painting as an artistic subject, which like so many other beginnings lies in obscurity, was of particular interest to Pierre Soulages. The painter also tried to explore this hidden origin with his pictures in black. Why do humans paint? Pierre Soulages has not yet found a universal answer, but he knows himself that his pictures should depict nothing, show nothing, but simply be. The being of a picture is simultaneously its purpose – and with Pierre Soulages, it is naturally a black being. 

Numerous exhibitions and his own museum

Pierre Soulages has received prizes and awards in his long and successful career and was a welcome guest at numerous exhibitions, including the first, second and third documenta in Kassel. But the greatest joy for the 90-plus master is the museum named after him in his hometown which offers a comprehensive retrospective of his own works but – in accordance with the express will of the name giver – is also to be open to other artists.