Georges Mathieu * (Boulogne-sur-Mer 1921–2012 Paris) Le temps a laissé son manteau, around 1987, signed Mathieu, titled on the stretcher, alkyd on canvas, 130 x 250 cm, framed This painting is referenced in the Addendum to the “Archives by Jean-Marie Cusinberche on Georges Mathieu”. Provenance: Gallery Guy Pieters, Knokke-Zoute (with provenance certificate) acquired from the above by the present owner in 1988 - European Private Collection Exhibited: Knokke-Zoute, Mathieu, Gallery Guy Pieters, 14 August - 4 September 1988 (the artist was present) Georges Mathieu was one of the leading exponents of French Informel. His non-representational, impulsive paintings, which he himself described as “lyrical abstraction”, are distinguished by vigorous, rapid brushwork, calligraphic lines, and the artist’s method of squeezing paint directly from the tube onto the canvas without using a paintbrush. Immediacy and the act of creation were particularly important to Mathieu, a fact demonstrated not least by his frequent staging of “happening-esque”, live painting performances from 1954 onwards. The present large-scale painting showcases the mature sensibility and meticulous precision with which Mathieu’s late work revisits the formal, gestural vocabulary he developed in the 1950s. Captivating in its dense composition, it strikes a dynamic balance between the centrifugal forces of its colour explosions and the painting’s overall horizontal layout. The title Le temps a laissé son manteau derives from a poem by the medieval nature poet, Charles d’Orléans, about the arrival of spring. For his painting, the artist uses an abstract, contrasting palette of dark black and luminous red tones, against a grey-green background – an expression of the vitality and emotional intensity of spring. Scattered flashes of yellow and blue point to the reflections of sunlight and water described in the poem.