Debré

Olivier Debre (1920—1999) is one of the great French artists of the post-war period; he is attached to the current ofLyrical abstraction. Grandson of the academic painter Édouard Debat-Ponsan, he received artistic training at an early age and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in particular in Le Corbusier's studio, in the architecture section. Quickly he devoted himself entirely to painting. He developed a pictorial vocabulary based on the breadth of formats, the importance of gesture and the expressiveness of color.

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In 1949, he developed the “significant abstractions”, canvases where painting is no longer about a representation but about the transmission of an emotion or an energy. His approach was enriched by a reflection on calligraphy and Far Eastern aesthetics, which led him to favor a direct practice, without recourse to preparatory drawing. Olivier Debré seeks to capture infinite expanses, most of his work is characterized by vast chromatic surfaces, often made in oil or acrylic, where the fluidity and density of the material dominate.

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As early as the 1950s, Debré established himself on the artistic scene: he participated in Salon of the Super-Independents alongside Hans Hartung, Gérard Schneider, Serge Poliakoff, Zao Wou-Ki or Jean Degottex. He then exhibited at the Documenta de Kassel And at the Venice Biennale. His career took on an international dimension with exhibitions in New York, Copenhagen and Tokyo. In 1995, the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris is organizing a retrospective dedicated to his work.

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In the 1990s, he received several major institutional commissions, in particular the stage curtains for the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre des Abesses in Paris, theHong Kong Opera and Of theShanghai Opera House. His works are now presented in major public collections, including the Pompidou Center, the Paris Museum of Modern Art, the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts, the MoMA (New York), the Hermitage Museum (Saint-Petersburg) and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec.

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Since 2008, the CCC OD (Olivier Debré Center for Contemporary Creation) à Tours contributes to the consecration of the artist's reputation through exhibitions and the development of a catalogue Raisoné.

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