Details
The image
Bands of dark paint scraping across a lighter ground, each stroke leaving a ridge where the tool lifted, the edges of the sheet left untouched. The composition is horizontal and heavy and the surface reads as something worked rather than something depicted.
Where it comes from
The poster documents Pierre Soulages’ exhibition at the Musée Dynamique in Dakar, held from 29 November to 29 December 1974, a significant showing of his work outside Europe in the years when his black paintings were being widely discussed. Post-war European painting turned to the material itself as a way of refusing both figuration and decoration and Soulages’ argument was that a single gesture, made with a tool rather than a brush, could carry an entire picture: the mark records force and direction instead of touch.
On the wall
It behaves like a wall fragment, so it suits a study, a hallway or a living room with strong furniture, where a dark field gives a wall weight. Because the contrast is high and the composition horizontal, it works above a sofa or a low shelf. In a group it should be the piece that holds the centre.
In company
The Modern collection gathers prints made for the same kind of wall.Avoid hanging it beside light, airy work, the weight would tip the whole arrangement.
