576 - André Lanskoy (1902 Moscow – Paris 1976)

André Lanskoy (1902 Moscow – Paris 1976) Les sables rougissant Oil on canvas. 1962. Approx. 97 x 146 cm. Signed lower right. Mounted on studio stretcher. • An exceptionally expressive painting from 1962, created during André Lanskoy’s artistic heyday • A fireworks display of luminous colors, full of captivating dynamism and masterful compositional sophistication • In private hands since its creation; offered on the international art market for the first time There are paintings one simply views, and those one experiences immediately. This 1963 work by André Lanskoy undoubtedly belongs to the latter category. Vibrant red dominates the canvas, interspersed with shades of orange and yellow as well as surprising accents of turquoise, blue, and soft pink. Colors overlap and interpenetrate one another, while sweeping lines connect the forms into a pulsating whole. The composition appears to be in motion, carried by a lively rhythm and remarkable inner harmony. For Lanskoy, color is far more than a creative tool. It is an expression of life, emotion, and movement. He himself sums up his artistic approach: “Je fais du non-figuratif d’après la nature, ou plutôt d’après la vie et toujours en accord avec la vie.” (Faupin & Boulanger, 2011, note 95; “I paint non-figuratively from nature, or rather from life, and always in harmony with life.”) Therein lies the power of his painting: it needs no representational depiction to move the viewer directly. Born in Moscow in 1902, Lanskoy arrived in Paris in 1921, where he found his artistic home. The colorfulness of Vincent van Gogh, the freedom of Henri Matisse, and the expressive style of Chaïm Soutine shaped his early years. From this, he developed a distinctive visual language in which color takes center stage. At that time, Paris was a center of modernism. Artists from a wide variety of backgrounds sought new forms of expression here and shaped the École de Paris, to which Lanskoy also belonged. He formed a close friendship with Nicolas de Staël, whom he met in 1944. Both developed distinct positions within postwar European abstraction. Together with artists such as Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, and Georges Mathieu, they championed a style of painting that emphasized freedom and individual artistic voice. Lanskoy is considered one of the leading representatives of Lyrical Abstraction, a movement characterized by spontaneous gestures, vibrant color harmonies, and emotional immediacy. Closely related is Tachism, a movement within Informal Art that emphasizes free use of color and expressive brushstrokes. Lanskoy combines this gestural freedom with a keen sense of rhythm and compositional order. By the time this painting was created, Lanskoy had long enjoyed international recognition. His participation in the “Younger European Painters” exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1953), his solo exhibition at Fine Arts Associates in New York (1956), and his participation in documenta II in Kassel (1959) underscore his standing within postwar European abstraction. His works are held in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Centre Pompidou, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The year 2026, marking the 50th anniversary of André Lanskoy’s death, provides an occasion to re-examine his significant body of work. Exhibition: André Lanskoy, Erker-Galerie, St. Gallen 1963, cat. no. 4, color ill. p. 18, label on the back of the stretcher. Provenance: H. Stoffel Collection, Heerbrugg; Erker-Galerie, St. Gallen; Private collection, Switzerland; acquired from the aforementioned gallery in 1963; passed to the current owner by inheritance. Taxation: subject to regular taxation (VAT: Regular Taxation).