(It would be good to see a history
of Outrenoir, like an extended diary, rather than a leap over forty years.)
Soulages describes his discovery
of Outrenoir as a breakthrough, but he was working in black all along, including paintings in oil from the 1950s and 1960s on the second of the exhibition's three floors.
Not exact matches
And if that weren't enough, a museum in his honor, Musée Soulages, is opening this month in his hometown
of Rodez, France, with an inaugural exhibit
of 24
of the artist's signature black
Outrenoir paintings, from 1979 through 2011.
Outrenoir can mean «beyond black» or «across black,» but also «and then black,» for the slippery grammar
of a compound word is like that.
A few older works are also on display as points
of reference, including a tar painting on glass from 1948, and a few
of his «
outrenoir» («blackbeyond») works — entirely black paintings with reflective surfaces from the 1980s, for which the artist is best known.
The same year he exhibited at the Pompidou Centre his first «mono pigmentaires» paintings, based on the reflection
of light on the surface states
of black, later called «
outrenoir» (the word «
outrenoir» can be translated loosely from French as «beyond black»).
Soulages» fascination with black, the tone with which he had come almost exclusively to mark his canvases, became a practical obsession in 1979 with the creation
of his first
outrenoir (beyond black) paintings.
Mr. Soulages dates the discovery
of «
outrenoir» to 1979.
The publication examines a pivotal moment in the artist's career and in doing so sheds light on Soulages» ongoing
Outrenoir paintings, the fruits
of a highly independent trajectory.
Also represented will be Pierre Soulages, the renowned French abstractionist whose
outrenoir (beyond black) method characterizes a personal fixation with the color black and its capabilities for and limitations
of reflecting light.