Simon Hantaï

The function of color is essentially linked to light, not to matter.
—Simon Hantaï

Gagosian is pleased to announce Azzurro, an exhibition of paintings by Simon Hantaï (1922–2008) in Rome. Curated by Anne Baldassari, it focuses on the significance of blue in the artist’s practice, illuminating his affinity with Italy and the influence on his work of its classical painting tradition. Azzurro follows a major retrospective, Simon Hantaï. The Centenary Exhibition, at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2022). It also forms part of a sequence with Gagosian’s two previous Hantaï exhibitions, LES NOIRS DU BLANC, LES BLANCS DU NOIR at Le Bourget in 2019–20, which featured black-and-white works, and Les blancs de la couleur, la couleur du blanc at 980 Madison Avenue, New York, in 2022, which emphasized combinations of primary and secondary colors.

Born in Bia, Hungary, Hantaï moved to Paris in 1948 and joined André Breton’s Surrealists, breaking with the group in 1955. Subsequently, he originated the pliage (folding) technique, in which a canvas is crumpled and knotted, painted over, and then spread out to reveal alternations between pigment and ground. After representing France at the 1982 Biennale di Venezia, Hantaï withdrew from public life, declining to exhibit new work until 1998. Following this extended isolation, he began altering a set of pliage paintings that he had shown in 1981, photographing them at an angle and producing prints from the distorted images. He continued to work largely in isolation until his death in 2008.