Jean Messagier (1920-1999) - Oil on canvas - Bud rifle

Jean Messagier (1920-1999) Oil on canvas. Bud gun. Titled and signed at the bottom, countersigned and dated May 1970 on the back. Former label from the Ariel gallery in Paris. Dimensions: 109x174cm. Very good condition. Bibliography: Daniel Meiller, Claude Engelbach "Jean Messagier, parcours d'un peintre de 1949 à 1979, Amiens, Maison de la Culture, 1979, reproduced on page 37. Authenticity confirmed by Mr. Elie Messagier, whom I thank. This work will be included in the artist's catalogue raisonné currently in preparation. *Born in 1920 and died in 1999, Jean Messagier was a French painter, engraver, and sculptor. Jean Messagier attended the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The artist began his artistic career in the 1940s and held his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Arc-en-Ciel. At that time, Jean Messagier was heavily influenced by the works of Pablo Picasso and François Desnoyer, who was his former teacher. He joined the group of the Nouvelle École de Paris in the 1950s, allowing him to exhibit at the Galerie de Babylone in the early 1950s. In 1953, the artist abruptly distanced himself from post-cubism with an expressionist tendency to develop a more personal art. He drew inspiration from the research of Jean Fautrier and Pierre Tal Coat on light to represent it in an abstract manner. His art was then described as lyrical abstraction, cloud-like, and tachist. Jean Messagier increasingly used various mediums, moving from sculpture to tapestry, from carnival floats to wine bottle labels. He wrote poems and composed music. The multidisciplinary artist Jean Messagier enjoyed playing with styles and artistic mediums to develop his own art. In fact, he never identified with a specific movement, transcending the opposition between abstraction and figuration.