Ferren

John Ferren, 20th century American painter and intellectual, occupies a unique place in the world of art by having participated both in the Parisian avant-garde of the 1930s and in the abstract expressionism of the New York School of the 1940s and 1950s.

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In 1929, Ferren moved to Paris and enrolled at the Sorbonne, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Ranson. He joined the Parisian artistic circle where major figures of European art such asHenri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso, who becomes his mentor. This immersion nourishes his creativity and stimulates his artistic evolution.

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Gertrude Stein, writer and patron, recognizes Ferren's talent and emphasizes his particular status: “He is the only American painter whom foreign painters in Paris consider to be a painter and whose painting interests them.” In the 1940s, he returned to the United States and began a career as an art teacher, while continuing to paint. His international reputation grew and his artistic work was praised for its uniqueness and its contribution to abstraction.

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In 2021, Galerie AB pays tribute to him with the exhibition entitled John Ferren: Pioneer of American abstraction, highlighting its precursor role in the development of artistic abstraction in the United States.