Abstraction lyrique
Loïc Millot
The article
In d'Lëtzebuerger Land, Loïc Millot devotes a review to La Couleur des jours meilleurs, an exhibition of drawings, prints and paintings by Olivier Debré (1920-1999) presented by Galerie Nathan Chiche in Vantoux, in the school designed by Jean Prouvé that became an art gallery in 2024. The critic recalls that the painter is well known in Luxembourg, where collectors have long appreciated his canvases, and sheds light on the title: he links colour, which lies at the heart of Debré's work, with Jean Prouvé's optimism.
The article traces the painter's career: his training at the Beaux-Arts de Paris in the circle of Le Corbusier, then, in 1941, in the midst of the Occupation, Picasso's harsh remark in front of La Petite Fille dans l'herbe, which led him to turn to abstraction. There followed his encounters with Hans Hartung, Jean-Michel Atlan and Pierre Soulages and, from the Liberation onwards, his emergence as a major figure of lyrical abstraction.
Loïc Millot describes a hang of charcoal drawings, lithographs, inks, engravings and canvases, for which Nathan Chicheportiche designed the exhibition layout on a principle of rotation, some pieces being changed every month. He dwells on Rideau rouge (1985), a small work that he relates to the 22-metre stage curtain painted in 1987 for the Comédie-Française; on Petite bleu mauve-Big Ben (1983); on the engraved plates of the illustrated book Anatomie du sourire (1993); and on an untitled ink three metres high, presented in the manner of a kakemono, which reveals Debré's attention to calligraphy, nurtured by his stays in Japan.
« la peinture d'Olivier Debré est un lieu spirituel ouvert sur l'infini »