20. 20AR OLIVIER DEBRE (1920-1999) Yellow-pink diagonal flow 1986 signed, titled and dated 86 on reverse oil on canvas signed, titled and dated 86 on the reverse oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm. 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in. This work is registered with the Archives Olivier Debré, Tours; a certificate from the Archives Olivier Debré will be given to the buyer. Provenance Private collection, France For sale at Cornette de Saint Cyr, Paris, Art Contemporain, 27 June 2011, lot 46 Acquired at this sale by the current owner Like the earth sighs slowly before entering the shadows, Olivier Debré's canvases offer something that gives man the measure of his identity. From his views, imprints of the sensitive world ("space is the place and the revelation at the same time", says the painter), the artist takes a form that generates its own form. The fading of contours, which he so earnestly hopes for, enables the imperceptible passage from movement to space, from colour to light, from movement to time, in a single canvas. Each of his works is a whole, whose eternal present is made of flesh. At the beginning of the 1940s, his art, infatuated with élan and solitude, was adorned with a Picasso-like structure. Moved by the painting Guernica, which he discovered in June 1937 in the Spanish pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, the young artist decided to meet the master, who invited him regularly to his studio at the Grands-Augustins during the winter of 1942-1943. It was at this time that Georges Aubry, whose gallery was located nearby, decided to exhibit his work. His first abstract canvases were so many parcels where the artist, using a knife or a brush, worked on space and its emptiness. The plane becomes an expanse. His first solo exhibition, at the Bing gallery, attracted the attention of the great critic Charles Estienne, who invited him to the Salon d'Automne in 1952, alongside Zao Wou-Ki, Degottex, Poliakoff and Manessier. His vernacular canvases, muted in colour, invite the mind to reason in reverse: the interior can only be reached through the exterior, because his paintings are an unveiling of silent agreements. The Perspective Gallery in New York, followed by the famous Knoedler Gallery, brought him international recognition. In 1959, after a trip to Spain, he exhibited at the Phillips Gallery in Washington, where he met Mark Rothko and Franz Kline. The 1960s, which began with a double exhibition in Paris and New York at the Knoedler Gallery, were the years of his consecration. In his fervent works, the artist patiently gathered the ultimate emergence. If the painter is embodied in the gesture, he is a subject where the beating of his blood and the tumultuous possession of the Touraine wave merge. The incessant blossoming of the Loire, in his paintings of the 1980s, has become so iconic of his work that it is now difficult to look at the royal river without detecting the Heraclitean unctuousness of these canvases, in which we can guess the blushing weariness of a fading day or the virginal, undecided clarity of a new dawn. In his light, fluid canvases, Olivier Debré summons the complicity of the sky by creating on the spot. Raindrops and stains add a heady glow to his ductile, hic et nunc material. By collecting the effusion or quiver of colour as it escapes (the artist tilts the canvas once it is finished), Olivier Debré has made these hems of matter his signature. These sediments are fragments. Embracing the words of Bachelard: "dynamic reverie in material intimacy", this painter fights realism to make reality his true quest; the sea spray under his brush can be felt, just as a coppery warmth emanates from his Coulée diagonal jaune rose created in 1986. Revealing the natural pride of the world's beauty, Olivier Debré extracts from our sight that which is most beautiful: the gaze. As the earth exhales gently before slipping into the shadows, Olivier Debré's paintings offer the means to the measure of one's identity. From his views, captured within the perceptible world-space is at once a place and a revelation, says the painter-, the artist retrieves a shape that in turn generates another shape. When contours become precarious, a moment he so looks forward to, then within a single canvas is held the imperceptible passage from movement to space, from colour to light, from movement to time. Each of his works is an entity, the eternal present of which is made tangible. His art, suffused with élan and solitude, in the early 1940s, adopted a Picasso-like structure. Moved by the painting Guernica, which he discovered in June 1937 in the Spanish pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, the young artist decided to meet the master who, during the winter of 1942-1943, invited him regularly to his studio at the Grands-Augustins. It was at this time that Georges Aubry, whose gallery was located nearby, decided to exhibit his work. His first abstract canvases were composed of a number of colour fields where the artist, using a knife or a brush, worked on space and its emptiness. The plane became an expanse. His first solo exhibition, at the Bing Gallery, attracted the attention of the great critic Charles Estienne, who invited him to the Salon d'Automne in 1952, alongside Zao Wou-Ki, Degottex, Poliakoff and Manessier. His vernacular canvases, with thick impasto and muted colours, invite us to reverse our thought process: since his paintings are an unveiling of silent agreements, one must, from the exterior seek out the interior. The Perspective Gallery in New York, followed by the famous Knoedler Gallery, afforded him international recognition. In 1959, after a trip to Spain, he exhibited at the Phillips Gallery in Washington, where he met Mark Rothko and Franz Kline. The 60s, which began with a double exhibition in Paris and New York at the Knoedler Gallery, were the years of his consecration. The artist, in his fervent works, patiently awaits the ultimate emergence. Though the painter is embodied in each gesture, he is a subject in which are merged the pulse of his blood flow and the rapture caused by the tumultuous waters of Touraine. The shimmering appearances of the Loire, in his paintings of the 1980s, have become so iconic of his work that it is now difficult to look at that Royal River without detecting Heraclitus's Flux in the unctuousness of his canvases; the blushing weariness of a fading day or the virginal, hesitant clarity of a new dawn. In his delicate, fluid canvases, Olivier Debré summons the complicity of the sky by creating on the motif. Raindrops and traces add a heady sheen to his ductile matter, here and now. By collecting the overflow or effervescence of the runaway colour (the artist tilts the canvas once it is finished), Olivier Debré has made such seams of matter his signature. Sediments which are as many fragments. Endorsing Bachelard's words he says: "a dynamic reverie within the intimacy of matter", his true quest: by refusing realism to achieve what is real; the sea spray under his brush can be felt, just as a copper-coloured warmth emanates from his Coulée diagonale jaune rose created in 1986. Revealing the world's natural pride of beauty, Olivier Debré extracts from our sight that which is most beautiful: the gaze.