Jean Messagier

About artist

Born in 1920, in Paris, France.

Died in 1999, in Montbéliard, France.

Jean Messagier was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 1945, his first solo exhibition took place in Paris at the Galerie Arc-en-Ciel. From 1945 to 1949, the artist’s work showed the influence of Pablo Picasso and François Desnoyer, who was his professor at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. Messagier was reintroduced to the public in 1952 during an exhibition organized by Charles Estienne at the Galerie de Babylone, titled La Nouvelle École de Paris (The New School of Paris).

The following year, Messagier deliberately broke away from expressionist-leaning post-cubism. He then drew inspiration from Jean Fautrier and Pierre Tal Coat to develop a personal vision in which he restored "light... a light different from that of the Impressionists" that he had "abstractly sensed." Creating everything from sculptures and tapestries to carnival floats, hot-air balloons, and wine labels, he was also a poet, composer, ecologist, and militant humanist—but above all, a painter. Associated with the post-war School of Paris, he has been variously labeled as a lyrical abstractionist, a nuagiste (cloud painter), a tachiste, and an abstract landscapist. He himself never wished to be categorized, always rejecting the duality between abstraction and figuration.

Public Collections

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

CNAP, Paris, France

Guggenheim, New York, USA

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

MAMC+, Saint-Étienne, France

MMCA, Seoul, South Korea

MoMA, New York, USA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland

Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagaoka, Japan

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Museum of Modern Art, Eilat, Israel

National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium in 1920, in Paris, France.