Simon Hantaï

After studying at the Budapest School of Fine Art, he traveled through Italy on foot and moved to France in 1948. André Breton wrote the preface to his first exhibition catalogue in Paris, but in 1955 Hantaï broke with the surrealist group over Breton's refusal to accept any similarity between the surrealist technique of automatic writing and Jackson Pollock's methods of action painting.

A retrospective of his work was held at the Centre Pompidou in 1976, and in 1982 he represented France at the Venice Biennale.Tom McDonough, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_3_87/ai_54099526 Hantai's Challenge to Painting, Art in America, March 1999.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314122432/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_3_87/ai_54099526 |date=2008-03-14 }}

A representative collection of Hantaï's works is held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

A Simon Hantaï Retrospective opened at the Centre Pompidou on May 22, 2013, with more than 130 works from 1949 to 1990s, and a full color illustrated catalog.

His sons are the musicians Marc, Jérôme and Pierre Hantaï.

Hantaï began creating pliage paintings in 1960, conceiving of the process as a marriage between Surrealist automatism and the allover gestures of Abstract Expressionism. The technique dominated the work he made during the rest of his career, re-emerging in diverse forms—sometimes as a network of crisp creases of unpainted canvas spanning the composition, and at other times as a monochrome mass manifesting in the center of an unprimed canvas. His technique of "pliage" (folding): the canvas is first folded in various forms, then painted with a brush, and unfolded, leaving apparent blank sections of the canvas interrupted by vibrant splashes of color. The technique was inspired by the marks left folding on his mother’ apron.

From 1967 to 1968 he worked on the Meuns series where he studies the theme of the figure. Meun is the name of a small village in the Forest of Fontainebleau where the artist lived starting 1966. Hantaï stated: "It was while working on the Studies that I realized what my true subject was – the resurgence of the ground underneath my painting."[https://paulrodgers9w.com/simon-hantai-press#hantaiinamerica Carter Ratcliff, Hantaï in America, 2006.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170412224534/https://paulrodgers9w.com/simon-hantai-press#hantaiinamerica |date=2017-04-12 }} Quote from Hantaï in conversation with Paul Rodgers, Paris studio, 1994 In contrast with the Meun (1967–68), the figure, in the Studies (1969), is absorbed and the white detaches from being the background and becomes dynamic.

Mariales (Cloaks) (1960–62)

Meuns (1967–68)

Etudes (Studies) (1969)

Blancs (the Whites) (1973–74)

Tabulas (from 1974)

Laissées (Leftovers)(1981–1994)

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/arts/design/03hantai.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink New York Times Obituary of Simon Hantaï]
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/arts/design/simon-hantai.html?_r=0 Rosenberg, Karen, "Art in Review: Simon Hantaï," The New York Times, 5/23/13.]
• [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55f9139fe4b09fd619481da6/t/56da3ca6e32140a3346b9977/1457142952515/2010_SH_Hantai-and-Warhol-the-Fate-of-Modern-Art-in-the-Post-Second-WWII.pdf Rodgers, Paul, "Simon Hantaï & Andy Warhol – The Fate of Modern Art in the Post-Second World War Era" 4/1/10.]
• Rodgers, Paul, “[https://79440759.flowpaper.com/RodgersModernAesthetic/#page=134 The Resurgent Ground: Simon Hantaï],” The Modern Aesthetic, 2017.
• Rodgers, Paul, [https://online.flowpaper.com/79440759/RodgersPicassoHantaiflip/#page=1 Pablo Picasso | Simon Hantaï: Drama Shared, Cubism and the Fold]. 9W Publications, 2020.
• [http://www.architecturaldigest.com/blogs/daily/2013/05/simon-hantai-exhibitions-paul-kasmin-gallery-centre-pompidou Cochran, Samuel, "Simon Hantaï's Abstract Paintings At Paul Kasmin Gallery, Centre Pompidou," Architectural Digest, 5/7/13.]
• [http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/simon-hantai "Simon Hantaï," Time Out New York, 4/24/13.]
• [http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/simon-hantai/ Ostrow, Saul, "Reviews: Simon Hantaï," Art in America, 9/11/11.]
• [http://nonsite.org/feature/engendering-pliage-simon-hantais-meuns An essay on Hantaï] by art historian Molly Warnock
• Warnock, Molly. Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Books – Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting|url=https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08488-6.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=1 July 2020|website=Penn State University Press}}
• [https://archive.today/20130127084145/http://www.lanaturnerjournal.com/current/35-issue32/54-letter-from-new-york?92f5ee08911f163036a8a5033e8594bc=f5b9a655cea4ba50f8fe73d79ea640fc An essay on Hantaï] by Ben Lerner
• [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/844084158 Dominique Fourcade, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Alfred Pacquement, Jean Coyner. Simon Hantaï, Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2013.]
• [https://simonhantai.org/ Archives Simon Hantaï]

{{Commons category|Simon Hantai}}

• {{in lang|en|fr}} [https://www.videomuseum.fr/en/search/HANTAI%20Simon%E2%86%B9HANTA%C3%8F%20Simon Simon Hantaï in the French public collections of modern and contemporary art.]

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Category:1922 births

Category:2008 deaths

Category:20th-century French painters

Category:20th-century French male artists

Category:French male painters

Category:21st-century French painters

Category:21st-century French male artists

Category:Hungarian painters

Category:Hungarian emigrants to France

Category:Naturalized citizens of France