Pierre Soulages "Peinture", 1963. Signed Soulages; signed and dated on the reverse 16-11-63. Oil on canvas. 97 x 130 cm. Literature: Pierre Encrevé: "Soulages. L'oeuvre complet. Peintures. II. 1959-1978", Paris, 1995, no. 528, ill. p. 100. Exhibited: "Soulages", Kootz Gallery, New York, 1964. This was the seventh Pierre Soulages, one-man exhibition in the gallery reprsensenting 18 paintings from 1963. Exhibited: "Soulages", Galerie Protée, Toulouse, 1972. Provenance: Kootz Gallery, New York, 1963. Provenance: Galerie de France, Paris, 1970. Provenance: Private collection, Copenhagen, Denmark. Acquired from Galerie de France, Paris, October 19th, 1973. Will be sold with a copy of the original invoice from the gallery. Pierre Soulages (b. 1919) is - literally and figuratively - the grand old man of French abstract painting. At the age of 95 he is recognized as the greatest living painter in France. His beginnings in post-war Paris, his international breakthrough in the mid-1950s and most recently the inauguration of the Musée Soulages in Rodez in southern France, all rest on a highly rigorous artistic effort. Therefore, it is a particular pleasure to be able to present an excellent painting from the crucial period in the early 1960s, where Pierre Soulages established himself as a European equivalent to the New York School of abstract and gestural expressionism included names such as Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Only at a first glance is it paradoxical that the painter known as "The Painter of Black" and "Le Maître de l'Outrenoir" also deals extensively with light. In the artist's all-black "Outrenoir" paintings from 1979 and onwards the light becomes an external effect on the viewer's encounter with the artwork. In "Peinture, 16 novembre 1963" the resolute, black strokes step forward from a background of a white canvas with deep tones of glazed burnt and luminous ochre. Pierre Soulages' relation to Denmark was from early on a strong one - not least because of the friend and fellow painter Mogens Andersen (1916-2003), who in the postwar years worked diligently to promote French lyrical abstraction in Denmark. Pierre Soulages had his first exhibition in Denmark in 1950 as part of the "Levende Farver" (Living Colours) exhibition at Charlottenborg organized by the Society of French Art, individually Soulages exhibited at Galerie Birch in 1951, and he had one of his first retrospective exhibitions at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen in 1963 - the year where the painting currently up for auction was made. Estimate in DKK : 3000000 / 0