Mathieu favoured a form of Action Painting, using elongated brushes to create calligraphic, scribble-like marks and drips, or squeezing paint directly onto the canvas. He called his style ‘Lyrical Abstraction’, to differentiate it from geometric abstraction. Today it is seen as part of ‘Art Informel’, a pan-European movement that sought intuitive, organic forms of expression.
Born 1921 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Mathieu taught himself to paint while working as a US Army interpreter and a professor of French at the Université Americaine, Biarritz. Though his first canvas, Oxford Street by Night (1942), was figurative, thereafter Mathieu devoted himself to the ‘freest possible creative forms’, in order to ‘liberate art’.
In 1946, while working for an American public relations company, he encountered Abstract Expressionism, becoming well-known on the New York scene. Critic Clement Greenberg bought his work, calling Mathieu the ‘strongest’ of the European painters.
Abstract Expressionism was then largely unheard of in Europe, and Mathieu helped disseminate it, arranging exhibitions in Paris of artists including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He also organised shows to promote Lyrical Abstraction, including the defining H.W.P.S.M.T.B. at Colette Allendy gallery in 1948, titled after its artists: Hans Hartung, Wols, Francis Picabia, François Stahly, Mathieu, Michel Tapié and Camille Bryen.
Following solo exhibitions in Paris in 1950 and New York in 1952, Mathieu introduced the performative element to his work. His costumes were inspired by family legend that they descended from the nobleman Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade in 1096 and many of his paintings’ titles refer to great battles and royals, including Le Grand Dauphin (1960), which sold at Christie’s Paris in 2018 for €511,500 and Souvenir de la Maison d’Autriche, which achieved HK$17,290,000 at Christie's Hong Kong in 2020.
Although Mathieu’s performances were popular — in 1954 he painted La Bataille de Bouvines in front of journalists from Life magazine — the speed at which he worked (for example, just 20 minutes for Hommage aux poètes du monde entier in 1954) made him a controversial figure.
Mathieu also took part in multiple commercial collaborations, including a fresco for the Radio France HQ in Paris and a hugely successful series of posters for Air France, of which more than a million were sold.
Today Mathieu’s work is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Tate Modern. He died in 2012, aged 91.
乔治·马修(1921-2012)
真与恶
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Souvenir de la maison d’Autriche (Remembering the House of Austria)
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Hugues de Payens fonde l’ordre du Temple
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Silence Apaisé (Peaceful Silence)
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Le Grand Dauphin
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
La mort de Charles Le Téméraire
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Adversité Généreuse
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921 - 2012)
Dé dain perdu (Lost Disdain)
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Vertu Funè bre
Georges Mathieu (b. 1921)
Mariage de Marie de Blois
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Joutes du Duc Charles de Bourgogne contre Adolphe de Clèves, Seigneur de Ravaistain
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Fourth Avenue
乔治・马修 (1921-2012)
L’adversité généreuse
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Composition
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
L'immortalité ruinée
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
La Plainte de la Sainte Mère l’Eglise
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Naufrage bleu
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Gouffres Frê les
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
'Philippe II reçoit de jeunes seigneurs japonais envoyés par le P. Valignani'
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
Second Avenue
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Chelia
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Ansbert - 772
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Giverny
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Sombre croyance
Georges Mathieu (b. 1921)
Ambiguité gothique
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Ruines de Deuil
乔治• 马蒂厄 ( 法国, 1921-2012)
凸变量函数的变化
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Sans titre
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Sanglot d'horizon
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
Nuit de sang
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
Combat devant Florence
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Reflets éxilés
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Voie d'astres
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Ambiguité gothique
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
Charles Duc de Lorraine
GEORGES MATHIEU (NE EN 1921)
Vaires
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Thétis
GEORGES MATHIEU (NÉ EN 1921)
Quatrième Ortho-Déduction
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Défaite de Godefroy et de Sigefroy (890)
GEORGES MATHIEU (B. 1921)
FESTIN à NORWICH
乔治.马修(1921-2012)
狂烈的热情
Georges Mathieu (N. 1921)
Sourires ignorés
GEORGES MATHIEU (B. 1921)
PRIèRE à CATHERINE TEKAKOUITA
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Souvenir oublié
GEORGES MATHIEU (1921-2012)
Passé Fantôme
Georges Mathieu (1921-2012)
Diex Le Volt