Background

Hantaï was born as Simon Handl in Biatorbágy, Pest, Hungary, on December 7, 1922. His parents belonged to a small Catholic community of Swabian émigrés from Germany. In 1939, in response to Hitler's policies, the family changed its name to Hantaï.

Education

At the age of seven, after an attack of diphtheria, Simon Hantaï lost his sight for four months. In the spring of 1941, he entered the Budapest School of Fine Arts (now Hungarian University of Fine Arts). He participated enthusiastically in student life. During September 1945-May 1946 he took the art history course headed by François Gachot, director of the French Cultural Institute. Under his guidance discovered Matisse and Bonnard. In 1948 Simon Hantaï received a grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and continued his studies in Paris.

Career

Hantaï travelled through Italy on foot and moved to France in 1948. André Breton wrote the preface to his first exhibition catalogue. The show was held at the L’Étoile scellée in Paris. Hantaï's early 1950s paintings featured figures in landscape, biomorphic and geometric forms, as well as imaginary creatures and a series of collages and cutouts. Using such procedures as scraping, overpainting, and drips, he mixed the iconography and the automatic techniques of Surrealism with the material and the gestural approaches of Art Informel, Art Brut, and Lyrical Abstraction (Abstraction Lyrique).

Hantaï broke with the surrealist group in 1955 because of André Breton's refusal to accept any similarity between the surrealist technique of automatic writing and Jackson Pollock's methods of action painting. The same year Hantaï took part in the "Alice in Wonderland" exhibit held by Charles Estienne at the Galerie Kléber, a bookstore-gallery. His large-scale gestural abstractions inspired by the works of Georges Mathieu and the Abstract Expressionists were first presented in May 1956 at the Galerie Kléber, Paris.

Following the exhibition and event series, Commemorative Ceremonies of the Second Condemnation of Siger de Brabant, which Hantaï had established together with Mathieu in March 1957 to celebrate the condemnation of the 13th-century heretic philosopher Siger de Brabant by the Church, the artist continued his calligraphic artworks (Memory of the Future, 1958) and also became interested in the history of Christian theology and mysticism. Between 1958 and 1959, he worked on Écriture rose (Pink writing), a monumental canvas comprising of hand-copied, multicolored texts as well as canvases formed by painting, grattage (scraping), and handwriting. In March 1959 his first retrospective took place at the Galerie Kléber, recapitulating his Paris years. It was titled "Simon Hantaï. Peintures 1949-1959."

In 1960 Simon Hantaï launched the first series of folded and knotted paintings. It was titled Cloaks of the Virgin (Manteaux de la vierge, 1960-1962). The same year Hantaï abandoned writing and gesture, introducing a completely new work method: pliage (folding). During the period of 1960-1962, the artist created eight series of artworks by varying the handling and the dimensions of the support and also the colours and their application.

Around 1963 Daniel Buren started to frequent Hantaï's studio, which was close to his own in the cité des Fleurs. In early 1966 Buren brought along Michel Parmentier, who became Simon Hantaï close friend. Hantaï started his series, Maman! Maman!, dits: La Saucisse refers to a quotation from Henri Michaux, in 1964.

In the year 1965, Hantaï left Paris for Meun, a village in the Fontainebleau forest where he created the Meuns series (1966-1968); it employed only a single colour in addition to white. Subsequent series made by folding-as-method, as the artist called his process, included spherically shaped watercolours (1971-1972) and two sequences of Tabulas (1972-1974, 1980-1982).

A retrospective of his work was held at the Centre Pompidou in 1976. In 1982, after representing France at the Venice Biennale and displaying his artworks at Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, Hantaï ceased exhibiting his paintings. In 1998 he returned with a series cut from his 1981 paintings titled Laissées, which was followed by exhibitions in different parts of the world, including those at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998); Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Germany (1999).

In 2003 Hantaï made an important donation to the Centre Pompidou. He gave them twelve small paintings from 1950-1986 and six large paintings. They were exhibited the same year at the Musée National d'Art Moderne. In 2007 the exhibition titled "La couleur toujours recommencée," was organized by the Musée Fabre in Montpellier as a tribute to Jean Fournier, who had died the year before. It gave a significant place to Hantaï.

Achievements

• 

  Simon Hantaï was one of the leading Conceptual artists of the 20th century. In 1960 he became the developer of the "pliage" (folding) technique. Some of his most notable works include Mariales (Cloaks) (1960-1962) and Les Blancs (Whites) (1973-1974).
  
  In 2013 the Centre Georges Pompidou held a posthumous retrospective of Simon Hantaï in honour of his legacy. Nowadays, Hantaï’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, among others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Blancs

  • À Gerald Manley Hopkins

  • Blanc

  • Untitled

  • Study

  • Meun

  • Tabula

  • Laissée

  • Blanc

  • Peinture

  • Meun

  • Peinture

  • Peinture

  • Untitled

  • Laissée

  • Untitled

  • Study

  • Mariale

  • Blanc

  • Tabula

  • Untitled

  • Meun

  • Mariale

  • Tabula

  • ³M.C.2² (Mariale)

  • Untitled (Suite 'Blancs')

  • Peinture

  • Peinture

  • Meun

  • Meun

Views

Quotations: "It was while working on the Studies that I realized what my true subject was - the resurgence of the ground underneath my painting."

"The pliage developed out of nothing. It was necessary to simply put myself in the place of someone who had seen nothing... in the place of the canvas. You could fill the folded canvas without knowing where the edge was. You don't know where things stop. You could even go further, and paint with your eyes closed."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• André Breton: "In this distressing and all-pervading noise of cow-bells into which today's art increasingly settles - at last the sounding of a gong! In turn the hammer hits... the infallible rhythm announcing true creation; it is Simon Hantaï."

Connections

Hantaï fathered three sons, Marc, Jérôme and Pierre Hantaï. They all are musicians.

Son:

Marc Hantaï

Son:

Jérôme Hantaï

Son:

Pierre Hantaï

References

• Simon Hantaï This volume is published for the Centre Pompidou’s acclaimed Hantaï retrospective, held five years after his death in 2008, and constitutes the first major publication in English on his work.
  2014
• Hantaï Blancs Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition: Simon Hantaï: Blancs at Paul Kasmin Gallery New York NY, October 22 - December 5, 2015.
  2015
• Simon Hantaï Pliage: The First Decade Book of by Simon Hantai (Artist), Alfred Pacquement (Author), Robert Storr (Author), Daniel Hantai (Introduction).
  2015
• Simon Hantai Volume I-II The first comprehensive book on Simon Hantai's works.
  2013
• Simon Hantai The artist's exhibition at the Paul Kasmin Gallery March 19 Through April 24, 2010.
  2010
• La Peinture Apres l'Abstraction: Martin Barre, Jean Degottex, Raymond Hains, Simon Hantai, Jacques Villegle (English and French Edition) Martin Barre, Jean Degottex, Raymond Hains, Simon Hantai, Jacques Villegle. English and French Edition.
  1999