




Peinture 182 x 181 cm, 2 Octobre 2019
2019
Occupying nearly a perfect square of monumental scale, this late work by Pierre Soulages draws the viewer into the concentrated world of outrenoir, the term the artist coined to describe light that is not absorbed by black but transformed and reflected from its surface. Executed in oil on canvas in 2019, when Soulages was in his hundredth year, the painting demonstrates the sustained intellectual rigor and physical command that defined his practice across seven decades. The heavily worked surface activates the canvas as a shifting field rather than a static object, with each textured zone catching and redirecting ambient light differently depending on the viewer's angle of approach, time of day, and the specific conditions of the room in which the work is encountered. The square format itself is a deliberate choice, resisting any implied narrative of horizontal landscape or vertical figure in favor of pure presence. The near symmetry of the 182 by 181 centimeter dimensions reinforces this sense of equilibrium while preserving the subtle handedness that reminds the viewer of the work's physical origin. Soulages applied the oil with tools rather than conventional brushes, building ridges, grooves, and planes that give the composition a sculptural density inseparable from its painterly identity. The result is a work that is simultaneously austere and sensory, reductivist in its palette yet inexhaustibly complex in its visual effects. Offered through Perrotin, this work carries particular significance as a testament from the final period of one of the most consequential careers in postwar European painting. Signed by the artist and in excellent condition, it represents an opportunity to acquire a substantial, late example by a figure whose influence on abstraction has only grown in scholarly and market esteem. The absence of a frame is consistent with how such works are typically presented, allowing the painting's raw edge and physical mass to remain unmediated in the collector's space.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Overall
- Signed
- Yes
- Spotted At
- Gallery · Perrotin
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