Description
Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi (Persia, born 1937) "Letter", 1967 Canvas signed and dated, titled on the back. Height 80, width 65 cm. (Provenance : - former collection of Camille Renault (1904-1984). The canvas bears on the back the bull drawn by the patron on some works of his collection, - gallery C.H. Le Chanjour, 11, quai des Deux-Emmanuel, 06300 Nice. Label on the back. - Collection of a couple of amateurs from the Hérault region who acquired the work from the Gallery. Certificate from the Zenderoudi Archives dated 28 April 2021. The work "Lettre" is mentioned in the inventory of the Zenderoudi Catalogue raisonné. We would like to thank Mrs Marie Zenderoudi, Specialist in Contemporary Art, for kindly sharing her scientific notes on ZENDEROUDI's works. Born in 1937 in Tehran, Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi is probably the most widely exhibited contemporary artist from Persia in major international institutions. Presented in 1970 by the magazine Connaissances des Arts as one of the ten most important living artists in the world, the MoMA in New York, the British Museum in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris have included his work in their collections. Exhibited from the age of nineteen, Zenderoudi founded the Saqqa-Khaneh movement in 1958, which imposed a contemporary rereading of iconographic and conceptual borrowings from Persian culture. In 1960, he moved to Paris where he met Giacometti, Fontana, Dubuffet and the writers Ionesco and Restany. "Letter" was painted at the age of thirty by a precocious genius who had already won the Venice Biennale six years earlier. The artist deploys his particular abstraction in a perfectly mastered style. The letter-sign becomes a non-meaningful formal element, organised in a structured and powerful way to punctuate the surface of the support with fresh and luminous colours. Rediscovered in Montpellier, the work "Letter" has passed through the hands of the most enlightened amateurs, from the very sharp Galerie C.H. le Chanjour to the personal collection of Camille Renault. This patron, owner of a famous restaurant in Puteaux, offers artists such as Kupka, Léger, Villon, etc. the possibility of inviting art critics and gallery owners to this prestigious table in exchange for paintings. "Big Boy" Renault thus assembled a very important collection, later befriending Sartre, Camus, Le Corbusier and Picasso. The restorer, sensitive to Zenderoudi's pictorial diversity, included this painting in his collection and affixed his mark, a bull representing his astrological sign, on the reverse. A great admirer of René Etiemble's comparative literature, Zenderoudi illustrates his universalist thinking and practice with "Letter", synthesizing here the Orient and lyrical abstraction. The artist explains: "I am an expert in calligraphy, but I am not a calligrapher. I paint, I do not calligraph letters. Like an architect who uses stones or bricks to construct a building, I use writing to construct my painting. Jacques Farran
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Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi (Persia, born 1937) "Letter", 1967 Canvas signed and dated, titled on the back. Height 80, width 65 cm. (Provenance : - former collection of Camille Renault (1904-1984). The canvas bears on the back the bull drawn by the patron on some works of his collection, - gallery C.H. Le Chanjour, 11, quai des Deux-Emmanuel, 06300 Nice. Label on the back. - Collection of a couple of amateurs from the Hérault region who acquired the work from the Gallery. Certificate from the Zenderoudi Archives dated 28 April 2021. The work "Lettre" is mentioned in the inventory of the Zenderoudi Catalogue raisonné. We would like to thank Mrs Marie Zenderoudi, Specialist in Contemporary Art, for kindly sharing her scientific notes on ZENDEROUDI's works. Born in 1937 in Tehran, Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi is probably the most widely exhibited contemporary artist from Persia in major international institutions. Presented in 1970 by the magazine Connaissances des Arts as one of the ten most important living artists in the world, the MoMA in New York, the British Museum in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris have included his work in their collections. Exhibited from the age of nineteen, Zenderoudi founded the Saqqa-Khaneh movement in 1958, which imposed a contemporary rereading of iconographic and conceptual borrowings from Persian culture. In 1960, he moved to Paris where he met Giacometti, Fontana, Dubuffet and the writers Ionesco and Restany. "Letter" was painted at the age of thirty by a precocious genius who had already won the Venice Biennale six years earlier. The artist deploys his particular abstraction in a perfectly mastered style. The letter-sign becomes a non-meaningful formal element, organised in a structured and powerful way to punctuate the surface of the support with fresh and luminous colours. Rediscovered in Montpellier, the work "Letter" has passed through the hands of the most enlightened amateurs, from the very sharp Galerie C.H. le Chanjour to the personal collection of Camille Renault. This patron, owner of a famous restaurant in Puteaux, offers artists such as Kupka, Léger, Villon, etc. the possibility of inviting art critics and gallery owners to this prestigious table in exchange for paintings. "Big Boy" Renault thus assembled a very important collection, later befriending Sartre, Camus, Le Corbusier and Picasso. The restorer, sensitive to Zenderoudi's pictorial diversity, included this painting in his collection and affixed his mark, a bull representing his astrological sign, on the reverse. A great admirer of René Etiemble's comparative literature, Zenderoudi illustrates his universalist thinking and practice with "Letter", synthesizing here the Orient and lyrical abstraction. The artist explains: "I am an expert in calligraphy, but I am not a calligrapher. I paint, I do not calligraph letters. Like an architect who uses stones or bricks to construct a building, I use writing to construct my painting. Jacques Farran
