The Liverpool midfielder, who many expected to
see start on the
left -
side of defence against the Gunners had he been fit, sustained a heel injury against Barcelona last Saturday.
Especially as the competition between national schools
of abstract painting escalated, breaking out in arguments and even punches in the case
of Kline and the French painter Jean Fautrier, it would follow that the internal competition within these national schools also intensified.27 This was certainly true on the French
side at the Venice Biennale: in a very unusual move, two artists — Fautrier and Hans Hartung — were awarded Grand Prizes in painting, whereas normally only one was given, because the jury could not decide between the two contenders.28 Within the context
of the politics internal to the movement
of abstract expressionism, Meryon could thus be
seen as a reassertion
of Kline's original, breakthrough style as his own and thus a
defence of his personal artistic identity, after Kline himself had turned to colour, around 1955, and
left it up for grabs.