Artwork from the JSP Estate/Private Collection
Nationality
French
Artist Dates
1904-1987
Title of Work
Untitled
Preview
Date of Work
1938
Medium
Linocut
Height
12 1/2"
Width
9 1/2"
Collection/Provenance
Art & Design Study Collection: James Smith Pierce Collection
Status
Stored: R28
Location
UND Art Collections Repository
Artist Bio
Jean Hélion was a French painter born in 1904 in Couterne, France. Hélion studied chemistry for a short time at the Institut Industriel du Nord, and then became an apprentice of architecture shortly after. He painted while he was an apprentice, and in 1925 Georges Bine, a collector, noticed Hélion's talent and he was able to spend the rest of his life painting. Hélion is best known for his abstract and expressionist compositions. Works by Jean Hélion can be found in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Museum, The Smithsonian Art Museum and several other collections internationally.
Additional Information
This work was created for the fourth issue of the Pairs art magazine XXe Siècle. Hélion went through several different styles during his career as a painter, beginning with his discovery of abstract art over traditional art, and his later rejection of abstract art in favor of figurative painting.
This work was created during his abstract and modernist phase. During this phase most of Hélion's work contained geometric shapes and graphic colors before beginning to incorporate more human figures in his art. This is also one of only a few prints by Jean Hélion to incorporate one color on a solid background.
Purple on light blue.
Work included in 'School of Paris' exhibition, 2019.
Condition
Very good
Condition Notes
tape on verso