Georges Mathieu * (Boulogne-sur-Mer 1921-2012 Paris) Uranus II, 1953, titled and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cm, framed Provenance: Galerie Rive Droite, Paris (label on the reverse) Luciano Pistoi Collection, Turin Galleria Notizie, Turin Sale Christie’s London, 5 December 1996, lot 29 European Private Collection Exhibited: Turin, Dipinti di Mathieu, Galleria Notizie, September - October 1960, exh. cat. p. 7 with ill. Paris, Georges Mathieu, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, March-June 1963, exh. cat, no. 42 with ill. (label on the reverse) Literature: F. Mathey, Mathieu, Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1969, no. 61 with ill. Mathieu. 50 ans de création, Editions Hervas, Paris 2003, p. 47 with ill. “…Evolution in art is actually achieved through the saturation of previous means of expression, replaced by new means the effectiveness of which is unknown at the time they are used. (So much so that, paradoxically, when art has reached a large number of people for a sufficiently long period of time, its means of expression are empty of any real effectiveness, whereas the art which uses the most effective means is doomed in its early stages to reach only a very small number). We have here an example of the application of Lupasco's logic of the contradictory, the actualisation of efficiency implying a negative potentiation and vice versa.” Georges Mathieu