Henri Michaux

HENRI MICHAUX (Namur, Belgium, 1899 - Paris, 1984).
Untitled, 1977.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed with monogram in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 37 x 27 cm; 57 x 47 cm (frame).
Poet and painter of Belgian origin, nationalized French, Henri Michaux was initially oriented towards medicine, although his first passion was literature. However, he abandoned his studies to sail as a sailor between 1920 and 1921. He wrote his first literary work in 1922, "Cas de folie circulaire", to be followed by other writings: "Les rêves et la jambe", in 1923, and "Qui je fus", in 1927. It was around this time that he arrived in Paris (1923), where he discovered surrealism. Two years later he began to take a keen interest in the plastic arts, although it was not until 1937 when he made his first drawings and paintings. In 1927 he published his "Narration", a sort of alphabet of signs, and around the same time he collaborated with the avant-garde magazine "Le disque Vert" in Brussels, and in the thirties he frequented Jean Paulhan, who became his editor, and artists such as Brassaï and Claude Cahun. He then leaves aside the poetic texts to focus on travel notebooks, portraying in "Un barbare en Asie" (1931) his trip to China. It is also, as we have mentioned, the decade in which Michaux begins to paint, and he will soon hold his first exhibition. This took place in 1937, and marked the beginning of a prolific exhibition career, which will develop in parallel to his literary activity. In 1938 he held his first exhibition at the Pierre gallery in Paris, and the following year he published "Peinture", a work combining his poems and his gouache paintings. He continues with an intense activity during the forties, although the death of his wife in 1948, in a terrible accident, marks a key moment in his life and inspires him the moving poem "Nous deux encore" and a series of pen and watercolor drawings of a visionary expressionism. In the fifties he gave up gouache to focus on ink, and again a milestone in his career occurs when, between 1956 and 1960, Michaux experiments with hallucinogens, especially with mescaline. In 1965 one of his most important exhibitions is held at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Three years later he began to use acrylic, a new turn in his work marked by experimentation with a new technique. Throughout his life, Michaux regularly exhibited his work in various galleries in Paris, and in 1976 an important retrospective exhibition was dedicated to him at the Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence. He is currently represented at the MoMA in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the MNCA Reina Sofía, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the SMAK in Ghent and other collections, both public and private.