"Erxy", 1963

Oil on canvas

Signed and dated and located on the back of the canvas “Milano 1963” 

Dimensions: 80 x 100 cm 

Confronted with Arabic and Koranic writing, ancient Latin runes and cave paintings, Bernard Quentin experiments with words, letters and language. The canvas, of large dimensions, is left raw; the black letters of the Latin and Arabic alphabet develop and spread over its surface. They burst, like a tangle of words whose meaning has been lost: only the form and symbol of the letter interests Bernard Quentin.

In 1940, Bernard Maurice Quentin moved to Paris. He studied painting, sculpture and architecture at the École des Arts Décoratifs and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After the Second World War (during which he took part in the resistance), he became acquainted with Picasso. By 1946, he had become a regular fixture at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which brought together philosophers, poets, writers, painters, sculptors, actors and musicians of existentialist, surrealist and other persuasions, and who constituted, at that time, the core of theintelligentsia Parisian. 

A friend of Pierre Dimitrienko, Serge Rezvani and François Arnal, he was influenced by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. The first, whom he met in 1945, made him lean towards abstract expressionism. The second led him to abstraction, which earned him his first ideograms and shorthand graffiti.

In 1947, during a trip to the south of France and Italy, he discovered the rock inscriptions of the Valley of Wonders, affirming his initial interest in the poetic spontaneity of all imaginary ideograms and other hieroglyphs. In the 1950s, he collaborated with Le Corbusier on architectural projects. He traveled to Brazil, Peru, Africa and Eastern Europe, as well as to the Scandinavian countries, including Lapland, where he studied local runes. 

From 1952 onwards, he worked on much larger formats, during which his graphic signs lost their geometric aspects and once again developed a gestural dynamic. After 1980, Bernard Quentin produced a series of paintings in which evocations of crowds were interspersed with scripts and graffiti. 

References:

. Article “Bernard Quentin”, October 31, 2011, Oxford Art Online 

. Robert Lebel (quote from Bernard Quentin), “ First Review of Current Art », Paris, Black Sun Editions, 1949

. Jacques Dopagne, Michel Broomhead, “ Knowing Quentin's art of excess », Paris, 1986

Museums: 

. In Paris: National Museum of Modern Art-Pompidou Center; National Center for Plastic Arts

In France: Cantini Museum in Marseille; Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Saint-Étienne 

Exhibitions : 

. Group exhibitions: in 1947, the second Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Salon Comparaisons and Salon de Mai; exhibition “On Four Walls”, Babylon Gallery, 1953; “The New School of Paris”, 1952; “50 years of abstract painting”, Creuze-Balzac Gallery, 1957…

. Personal exhibitions: May gallery, 1957, Stadler Gallery 1957; Galerie Quatre Saisons Gallery, 1959; Larcade gallery, 1978; “Quentin 1948-1963”, 1984 and “Memoir” 1900, Michel Broomhead Gallery; “Writings and Masses, Works from 1947 to 1963 and Writings and Cut-Outs, Totems, Recent Works”, Arnoud gallery, 1991…