7-b - HERGÉ

HERGÉ Untitled composition Acrylic on canvas, produced in the 1960s. This historic work was part of the collection of Brussels art dealer Marcel Stal, director of the Carrefour gallery. A rare and little-known aspect of Hergé's work. A paradoxical moment in the life of the clear-line artist to be rediscovered - forgetting black and white, realism, and turning to abstraction, to something more secret. 73 x 54 cm. After completing Tintin in Tibet, contemporary art burst into Hergé's life. For a long time, and with all the pleasure that a passionate art lover can experience, he frequented the Carrefour gallery in Brussels, located a stone's throw from the Studios and run by Marcel Stal, who had known him since the 1930s. Hergé was interested in the art of his time, and particularly appreciated the works of Lucio Fontana and Serge Poliakoff, which he could discover on the gallery's walls. Later, it was Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, who caught his eye; then there was David Hockney, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella. In the early 1960s, he was keen to try something new, and Louis Van Lint, a figure of post-war Belgian abstraction and one of the co-founders of the Jeune Peinture group (one of his paintings adorned one of the walls of the Studios Hergé), introduced him to abstract art. Under his guidance, Hergé produced a small number of canvases (around 30), but then decided to call it a day - the terribly demanding adventures of Tintin were taking up all his time, making it difficult for him to devote the same amount of time to painting. It was a short-lived experience, but an instructive one nonetheless. Discreet as he always was, Hergé only showed these paintings to a few very close friends, but he did agree to give two of them to Marcel Stal. Perhaps he was thinking of Miró (a reproduction of one of his works decorated his office) when he made this one. As he himself said, at the end of his career, he couldn't imagine living without painting around him. HERGÉ