Charles Lapicque, Bold Linear Abstract

Description

Lively black line abstract lithograph by French modernist artist Charles Lapicque (1898-1988), circa 1960. Signed lower right.

Original artwork on … more Lively black line abstract lithograph by French modernist artist Charles Lapicque (1898-1988), circa 1960. Signed lower right.

Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Archival plastic sleeve and Certificate of Authenticity included. Artwork, 9”H x 12”W; mat, 16”H x 20”W.

French painter, sculptor and printmaker. Charles Lapicque was an engineer by training, studying machinery and architecture. Lapicque conceived a passion for geometrical working, drawing and perspective. These led him to draw for his own pleasure and finally to teach himself to paint. He consistently worked with great freedom, oblivious to current trends.

Encouraged by Jacques Lipchitz, he decided in 1928 to devote more of his time to painting while working at the Faculté des Sciences in Paris on scientific research into value and color in relation to pictorial creations. The results of his experiments, first published in specialized reviews, appeared in book form in 1958. These complementary activities make Lapicque unique in French painting: his scholarly rigor, far from hampering his painting, seems to have encouraged his audacity.

In 1937, Lapicque was commissioned to execute five decorative panels for the Palais de la Découverte in Paris. He subsequently began to take a particular interest in Cubism, as a result of which his work approached that of Jean Bazaine and Maurice Esteve. Together they became known as ‘painters in the French tradition’ as distinct from the Ecole de Paris. Lapicque himself realized, however, that the post-Cubism fragmentation of the pictorial space in paintings represented the end of an era than the beginning of a new one.

The works of Charles Lapicque can be found in many museums including the Pompidou Modern Art Museum in Paris and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. less