13. 13AR JEAN-MICHEL ATLAN (1913-1960) Untitled 1955 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm Provenance Galerie Matignon, Paris Galerie Erval, Paris Stéphane Janssen Collection, Brussels Private collection, Belgium Anon. sale, Ader Paris, 26 June 1986 Christie's London, 30 April 1999, lot 32 Christie's Amsterdam, 27 November 2018, lot 136 Exhibition A museum in the Making: The Stephane Janssens collection of Contemporary European and American Art, April 26 - August 4 , 1991, Scottsdale Center for the arts Bibliography Correction to the catalogue raisonné of the complete works Prepared by Denise Atlan, Camille Atlan and Jacques Polieri, 2003, p.250 The power of this graphic rhythm of forms is a recurring motif in Atlan's work. The artist is in constant search of a spontaneity that links him to the "great rhythm of all living things". In his view, "true greatness [...] is rhythm, not the superficial rhythm of line but the rhythm that invents forms, the rhythm that coloured matter resists". As early as 1948, in an interview with the writer Aimé Patri, he declared: "I admire above all the art of the Dogons, that of the Pre-Colombians and the ancient Assyrians. The forms we invent must be capable of 'living' as well as those found in nature". Here, the edges of his figures give rhythm to the space of the drawing in an articulated choreography, in the manner of voodoo, jazz or African dances. With this affirmation of rhythm in his work, he introduces dance. And dance is for him something essential, a passion, a decisive element of magic.