Bram BOGART (1921-2012), "Composition bleue", gouache on paper, signed and dated 69 lower centre. Countersigned on the back, annotated and dated. H. 92 x 64 cm Provenance: Catherine Clerc-de Goumoëns Collection Note: Bram Bogart was the son of a blacksmith: The son of a blacksmith, Bram Bogart grew up in Delft, in the Netherlands, where he initially trained as a house painter before attending the Fine Arts School in The Hague to devote himself fully to artistic creation. During the Second World War, he went into hiding to escape the forced labour imposed by the German occupiers. After the war, he settled in Paris, then in Belgium, where he adopted the Belgian nationality. Although he did not officially belong to any movement, his career took him into informal art circles, the CoBrA group and the avant-garde Zéro group. But it is above all in his experimentation with materials that his work asserts itself. Bogart gradually enriched his canvases with complex mixtures - mortar, chalk powder, siccatives, varnishes and pigments - until he achieved a dense, sculpted, almost architectonic texture. This approach gives his works a physical presence on the borderline between painting and bas-relief. Bram Bogart adds more and more matter and thickness to his paintings, until they tip over into high relief, on the border between painting and sculpture. The blue composition presented here bears witness to this search for form and matter, where colour becomes volume.