Olivier DEBRÉ (1920-1999). - Lot 36

Olivier DEBRÉ (1920-1999). Untitled - 1948. Oil on canvas, monogrammed and dated 48 lower right, countersigned and dated on the stretcher on the back. H_54.5 cm L_46 cm In a black lacquered wood and gilded frame. Provenance: Galerie Altmann 19, rue Emmanuel Philibert 06300 Nice, with label on back of frame. Note: Olivier Debré's earliest works date back to the aftermath of the Second World War. French lyrical abstraction and his free, spontaneous, essentially emotional painting are already evident, blending with the artist's expression of the violence he experienced as a member of the Resistance, through the use of muted, autumnal colors. Debré shapes his subject by creating intuitive signs, the famous "character-signs" of this early period (1947-1953), combining gesture, thickness of material and contrasts of dark tones and shapes. The work presented here - dated 1948 - perfectly illustrates this early period, prior to the 1949 exhibition at Galerie Bing in Paris. A free-form, dreamlike figure focuses the scene, standing out against a brown background. Already, Debré was impressing on his viewers the expression of his emotions through matter and color, beyond the figure, and establishing the standards of his art, where the intensity of feeling takes precedence over the subject.