Original lithograph
Published by Maeght for Derriere le Miroir, Paris 1951
Printed by Mourlot
Mounted in white
Image size: 24 x 34cm
Jean René Bazaine was born in 1904 in Paris(21 December 1904 n Paris. He was a French painter, designer of stained glass windows, and writer on art theory.
He initially studied sculpture but rejected this art form, eventually becoming a significant Modern School of Paris painter. A fire in his workshop in 1945 destroyed almost his entire production, leaving only scant reference to his important series of watercolors of the 1930s that prefigured the experimental feel of his mature work.
Demobilized from the army in 1941 Bazaine, in the face of the prejudice over “Degenerate Art”, organized an avant-garde picture show in Paris under the heading “Vingt Jeunes Peintres de Tradition Française”, but 1942 was to be the year of his definitive turn towards the abstract - though he would never refer to himself as an abstract painter. In 1949/1950 he had his first major one man show at the Galerie Maeght, who remained his art dealer from that point and helped to establish his reputation in Europe as one of the great figures in modern art.
Two major exhibitions of his work were held in 1987 and 1988 and finally in 1990 the Exposition Bazaine in the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris., which was accompanied by the reissue of his major texts on painting, “Le Temps de la Peinture”.
Bazaine died in 2001.
