19 - Henri Michaux (1899–1984)

Henri Michaux (1899–1984) Composition Oil on canvas, monogrammed in the lower left corner and mounted on panel, 14 x 22 cm. Provenance: > Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. > Collection of Mr. F., Var. > Private collection, Paris Exhibitions: Michaux, Galerie Patrice Trigano, Paris, January 5–February 28, 1987. Condition Report: Framed “Born, raised, and educated in an environment and culture centered solely on the verbal, I paint to decondition myself,” writes Michaux in *Émergences-Résurgences*, “to stop the itch of the ‘how’ and the ‘why.’ To overcome the limitations of these most imperfect means of expression, he sets out, through the act of painting, to liberate these forces of the mind. The emergence of thought—akin to fleeting emanations, to unconscious outbursts—manifests as traces, stains, signs, ideograms, and alphabets, under the combined action of certain media suited to the fleeting world of apparitions, such as watercolor, pastel, gouache, pencil, and colored inks... For more than fifty years, he devoted himself to drawing the awareness of existence and the passage of time, which he likened to a struggle—“a drawing without a struggle is boring,” he said.” Patricia Brignone