Divergences: Post-War Expressionism

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Hanina Fine Arts is delighted to present a selection of paintings from the most influential avant-garde developments in Expressionism during the post-war years in Europe, including Tachisme, CoBrA and Art Brut.

Camille Bryen’s “automatic drawings” of the 1930’s attempted to manifest pure sub-conscious expression and evolved into the formative “Tachiste” works of the 1940’s which he exhibited with Georges Mathieu, and Wols creating arguably the most dominant movement of the post-war period, “Abstraction Lyrique” equivalent to Abstract Expressionism in America. The HFA exhibition includes Bryen’s extensively documented masterwork “Fomalhaut 109” from 1955 which was displayed at the Stedelijk Museum in 1957. Other examples of this definitive movement in the show include Jean Le Moal’s “Les Arbres” from 1954 exhibited at the Swiss Beyeler Galerie in 1956; and Romanian emigré Alexandre Istrati’s vigorously impastoed “Composition, 1956”.

In 1948 the CoBrA group was founded by Appel, Jorn and Constant, it was a reactionary movement seeking free expression of the unconscious but championing the material, as opposed to the self-referential idealistic quality of art. Incorporating a mystical primitive element to their work, they rejected more mainstream purist abstract expressionism.  The HFA show includes the Belgian artist’s painting “Vives Controverses” which was exhibited in the second “International COBRA Exhibition” in Liége in 1951; along with several works by French CoBrA artist Marcel Pouget.

Art Brut was a similarly reactionary movement, led by Jean Dubuffet, advocating raw expression but devoid of all cultural preconditioning, of which the HFA show has a powerful example by French exponent Jacques Soisson titled “Le Majordome”.

Other works in the show include a powerful abstracted bronze head by Louis Chavignier, and a mystical shamanistic painting by Hungarian Sigismond Kolos-Vary.

View exhibition highlights at:

http://www.haninafinearts.com/exhibitions/divergences​