Background
Mr. Barré was born in Nantes, France, on September 22, 1924.
Mr. Barré was born in Nantes, France, on September 22, 1924.
Martin Barré was trained at the School of Fine Arts De Nantes Saint-Nazaire, Nantes, first in architecture and then in painting.
Mr. Barré moved to Paris in 1948. In 1955 he exhibited his first abstract paintings at the Galerie La Roue. However, it was not until around 1958 or 1959, after he had traveled to the Netherlands, where he saw the work of Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, that his art attained the expressive rigor that became its hallmark.
Martin Barré designated space in his paintings by the distinct relationship between figure and ground, using forms that are spare and reduced, thus leaving much of the surface of the canvas open. In an effort to avoid expressionistic gestures, he applied paint with a palette knife instead of a brush. In 1960, Barré exchanged the knife for the paint tube, mixing its contents himself and then squeezing the paint directly onto the canvas. In 1963 he turned to spray paint, a medium with properties he had come to appreciate when looking at graffiti in the Parisian metro. Having found a matte black he liked, he used this method until 1967 and made paintings that either consist of white surfaces marked by subtle traces of spray paint in a corner, or are striped. In 1967 Barré decided to use stencils, and cut out the shape of an arrow from a large sheet of paper, for mark making that was controlled rather than intuitive. Then for five years Mr. Barré stopped painting altogether and concentrated on conceptual work, such as a group of photographs shown at Galerie Daniel Templon in 1968 that presented details of the Parisian gallery's empty interior.
When he returned to painting in the early 1970s, Barré began using acrylics and a brush, and adopted a slightly more expressive style. Perpetually restless and seeking new ways to challenge accepted modes of abstraction, Barré soon moved on, eventually making a series of paintings in which geometric shapes in bright hues about the edge of the canvas, usually painted a soft pink, and creating an ambiguous delineation between figure and ground. Martin Barré continued to explore the possibilities and limitations of painting until the end of his life. In the canvases from the 1980s and 1990s, colorful polygons are arranged on modular grids in a system both strict and playful. Paradoxes like this are central to Barré’s art.
Mr. Barré showed regularly at Galerie Daniel Templon and had solo shows at a number of international museums, including the Museu de arte moderna, Rio de Janeiro (1965). He was featured in group shows at the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1961); Venice Biennale (1964, 1978); and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1992).
59-80.75-c
72.73.D - 160 X 148
59-96 X 88-b
75-76-D-157x145
65.B.L.
unknown title
unknown title
64-1-3
76-77-C-147,5x140
67.F2
75-76-D 174x164
75-76-A-157x145
unknown title
63-M-3
62-5
66-7-A
60-T-18
66-6-A
59-140.130-A
63-L-6
65-s-10
73-74-C
60-T-20
89-90-82 x 138
60-T-9
63-F-F-2, 1963
SANS TITRE
82-84-124x118
80B-120 x 110
84-85-120x120
72-73-B-108x100
61-T-36
60-T-51
66-1-A-183 x 113
87-89-81 x 144D
64-D-T-50 x 46
63-F-5
82-84-88X82
67-Z-12
92B-124 X 128 – E
58-100 X 100-A
92A-120x126-B
Quotations:
"I do not paint to convey moods. I use a rule, a rule of the game, and I transgress it when it so requires."
"Without contradictions, without paradoxes, would there have been an evolution of painting, and without evolution would there be painting?"