Gallery News

Galerie Hurtebize is proud to present works by artists who have left their mark on art history. Daniel Buren, with his formal rigor and ability to transform spaces with simple repetitive patterns, is a valuable addition to our collection. Our gallery highlights works that question, transform and inspire. This work by Buren is an invitation to reconsider urban spaces, through the unique vision of a master of abstraction.

Daniel Buren‘s work, presented here by Galerie Hurtebize, perfectly illustrates the radical artistic approach of one of the most influential contemporary artists. This piece is characterized by its emblematic use of geometric lines, notably red and white squares juxtaposed against a background where contrasts are accentuated by a deep black zone. These simple shapes, organized with rigor, create a fascinating play of perspectives that plunges the observer into an optical and spatial exploration.

Buren‘s work is immediately recognizable by the symmetry of its motifs and the minimalist use of red, white and black. The choice of a restricted palette highlights the structure of the work, evoking an interaction between the two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space. The squares, carefully arranged, seem to unfold along two rising walls, amplifying the effect of depth and provoking a sense of visual movement.

The use of color is equally striking: the intense red contrasts with the pure white, creating an effect of light and volume, while the black part gives the impression of solidity and foundation, anchoring the work in space.

Daniel Buren is known for his site-specific interventions and public works that play with architectural space. The theme of repeating geometric patterns is central to his practice, and can be seen in this piece exhibited at Galerie Hurtebize. Buren explores the concepts of limit, context, and how the environment influences the perception of art.

This work uses the codes of geometric abstraction and leads viewers to perceive walls as dynamic surfaces.

Owning a work by Daniel Buren is first and foremost an immersion in the world of conceptual and minimalist art. His works are thought-provoking pieces that question spaces and the limits of the artistic framework. As a collector, owning a Buren means participating in a living and influential artistic history, where the visual language of abstraction meets spatial experimentation.

Collectors appreciate his works for their ability to transform the space in which they are presented, creating environments that stimulate critical and aesthetic thought. What’s more, Buren is an artist of international renown; his works are present in the world’s leading collections and exhibitions, guaranteeing both artistic and investment value.

Daniel Buren‘s mastery of color and repetitive motifs continues to captivate and transform spaces. This work, with its unique combination of red, white and black, is a perfect illustration. At Galerie Hurtebize, we’re delighted to be able to offer our visitors a chance to see and acquire works that push the traditional boundaries of art. Come and explore, experiment and enrich your collection with one of the most iconic names in contemporary art.

We invite you to discover this fascinating piece by Daniel Buren and many other works by major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Please do not hesitate to contact us to find out more about the works available or to arrange a personalized visit.

Discover our exclusive interview with Michel Mousseau, self-taught painter. To coincide with our exhibition “Michel Mousseau, The 60s“, the artist shares with us his unique career path, his artistic influences and his singular vision of painting. From his first aesthetic revelations to the nudes and still lifes that are emblematic of his work in the 60s, discover the thoughts and emotions that have shaped his work. Dive with us into Michel Mousseau‘s captivating universe and explore the themes and techniques that make his work a vibrant celebration of light and colour.

Q1 Can you tell us about your artistic career and what led you to become a painter?

I’m self-taught, with no formal artistic training. When I was a teenager at lycée, I was lucky enough to see some authentic paintings by Soutine and Modigliani at the home of a friend’s mother, who was a painter herself. It was a revelation.

Also at school, the short films on painting from all periods shown to us in art class by our teacher, Mr Jean Couy, a painter, were very formative for me. He introduced me to Cézanne.

I started drawing very early on, making lots of small, very precise drawings, which I unfortunately threw away. After that, I went to evening painting and drawing classes on Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris. I was very assiduous but never received any advice from the painters or draughtsmen who taught there.

My first aesthetic emotion was discovering the ocean at Pornic. Coming from Paris by bike, I remember the violence of that dazzle, that horizon so far away from the sea.

I must add that what seems to me to have been very formative in my journey as a painter are the worlds of my two grandparents. One was a blacksmith, the other a baker. I have an image of the forge, it was a very dark place. And there was this glint of red iron on the anvil in the middle. These two worlds, one of Black and fire, the other powdery, flour-white, making everything light and silky, including the floor and walls, these two worlds created a chromatic base that I have never stopped developing.

Q2 Which artists or artistic movements have most influenced your work, particularly in the 60s?

I discovered Cézanne, Rembrandt and Gainsborough. Cézanne and Matisse are familiar to me. I discovered Les Ménines by Vélasquez at the Prado in Madrid. It was also a time when I saw major exhibitions devoted to Picasso and Poussin, whose The Seasons touched me deeply. But what really struck me first in painting was De Staël. Klee, Mondrian and Joan Mitchell are among the painters whose work particularly interests me. Jean Hélion was also one of my discoveries at the time.

Q3 What inspired you to create the nudes and still lifes presented in this exhibition?

I was struck by the work of Richard Lindner, for example. He’s an American painter. The fundamental problem with his work is the relationship between things and the flesh, the flesh being a particular element of what surrounds us. I loved painting nudes, with their design and movement.

I see my work as a painter as a quest, a search, to which I associate the notion of pleasure. For me, research and pleasure are two words that define my attitude to painting. I left the Sorbonne and the wonderful Jankélévitch to live painting.

Q4 Can you explain your choice of colours and textures in your 60s paintings?

I come back to the image of the forge. This question of origin, in many ways including the reference to Courbet, is at the heart of my research. Courbet and the Origin of the World rather than the Impressionists. Perhaps that’s where my taste for black comes from, because black generates light, receives light, whereas yellow reflects it. Yellow is brilliant, it’s like gold. Soulages only worked with black, but his blacks are often coloured.

Over a long period of time, I’ve been interested in the “Fabrique du Noir”, or the Black as internal light. In other words, black is either red or blue, hot or cold, it is itself a varied colour, whereas lemon yellow is always lemon yellow, it’s a bit silly, it only reflects lemon yellow.

I insist on the continuous nature of my work. If there are periods, they are periods of continuity, the continuity being light and therefore light from what I call “The true colour of things“. It’s a title given to me by the poet Georges Schehadé. The true colour of things, that’s what I’m looking for.

But let’s not forget the fundamental pleasure of spreading colour, of receiving colour in the eye – it’s mysterious, it’s magnificent.

Q5 How do you approach the theme of intimacy in your nudes?

My subject is painting. For me, it’s not about reproducing or representing “things”, an object, a body or a landscape, but about capturing what catches the light.

My Nudes have been described as “pensive”. Thoughtful, yes, in the sense that I don’t tell stories. I’d say more detached, with a certain contemplative distance. It’s completely sensual, in the sense that a human body is not an object but a receptor of light.

Painting is first and foremost about seeing and making others see. Revealing without getting bogged down in anecdote. Painting expresses reality in all its transience and strangeness. It gives to see, it is to be seen. My painting is neither descriptive, narrative nor explanatory. I don’t paint objects or nudes, but I paint the light on objects and bodies in relation to the space in which they are.

So there is no question of intimacy, even when the subject is a human body. The human body, along with its surroundings, is a place that is taken over by painting, which searches for and through itself.

I see continuity in my work, I repeat. Continuity in the search for light, for matter, for that which resists the superficial gaze.

To paint nudes is not to try to capture or provoke desire or eroticism; it’s to investigate the enigma of reality that the painter’s gesture attempts to define through form, texture and colour. It is up to the viewer, if they so wish, to interpret the motif, the subject if that is what interests them.

Q6 How did the 60s influence your art?

During the period when I painted the canvases you are exhibiting, I wasn’t at all on the lookout for political or other events. At that time I lived in an artistic and intellectual milieu that included Roland Topor, Olivier O. Olivier and the regulars at Castel. In the theatre, I worked with Georges Wilson, Georges Vitaly and Daniel M. Maréchal, saw Pierre Arditti, Claude Brasseur and Sylvia Montfort, and was in contact with gallery owners Margueritte Motte and Robert de Bolli. I met a lot of poets, including André Salmon and Georges Schehadé. I live between Paris, Brittany and the Var.

My annual visits to the Cotentin region began in 1964. There I rediscovered the immensity of the skies and the sea. This was to give a new direction to my work.

Q7 What message or emotion would you like to convey through your work?

Open your eyes. To look. Seeing, that’s my project. I’m an optical glutton. The viewer is free.

How can we not hope that art remains at the heart of our lives?

Q8 What do you think is the place of art in today’s society?

Today’s art is more oriented towards representation and illustration than towards exploration. Contemporary art is more about DIY. I would say that Picasso was a genius at tinkering.

I ask the question, what does it mean to ‘see’? Because if you can’t see any more, what’s left? There’s nothing left. What is dying, if not no longer seeing? In short, painting is like a touchstone for existence.

Painting is a gesture of recognition, a form of homage to Creation. It is also a privileged meeting place with oneself and with those who have contributed to making the world a living place.

More than the mastery of artistic techniques, his family environment transmitted to him a strong sensitivity to art. But he waited until the death of his painter father Raymond Guerrier to be able to call himself an artist and he chose sculpture, turning his back on the painting practiced by the Guerrier family for two generations.

He left for Paris at the age of 19 and, the following year, began his creative activity with the architect-scenographer Pierre-Henri Magnin, who introduced him to the world of decor and scenography and whom Francis considered his master.

He got married and became a father at a very young age, which led him to create his own company for the creation of sets and scenography for events at the age of 25 in order to provide for his family’s needs more serenely. For ten years, in order to meet his clients’ wishes, he had to master many tools and media: video, laser, sound and light installations, but also construction materials, wood and steel. A rich experience but restrictive because it is time-consuming and limiting: he wants to expand his field of creation, give free rein to his imagination and no longer simply honor orders.

In 2000, at the age of 36, he sold his company and sailed for 4 months in the Mediterranean to discover the sites listed as World Heritage by UNESCO, from Italy to Egypt through Syria. On his return, he knew he wanted to be a sculptor. He then made a break in his professional career, which was nevertheless flourishing, in order to feel in phase with his deepest values and to respond to the imperative need to return to his roots. At first, he settled in Paris in his grandfather’s studio, which was also André Derain‘s studio. He then discovered the painted work of his grandfather and this universe became his main inspiration. In 2002, he held his first exhibition of his sculptural work around the sky, dreams and memory, where he integrated light into the steel, wood, glass and copper that make up his creations.

But Francis Guerrier has a need for grandeur and dreams of creating a monumental work “that puts man in his place”. He also feels that nature and the light of the south are necessary for him. In 2015, he moved with his second wife to Eygalières and rediscovered his roots. While still working as a set designer to satisfy his passion for theater, he further developed his know-how and his own technique and could finally tackle the realization of sculptures of impressive dimensions, such as his 12-meter high Feather. In 2005, the Galerie Guigon in Paris allows him to present his new work of steel based on the folding and the curve.

The black steel sheet becomes his medium of choice. He developed a technique of incising the metal and cold bending of flat plates by which he seeks to honor the material and find balance and harmony after the struggle. His Euclidean forms are inspired by nature, the cosmos and the stars, and volume is created through folding.

Monumental and yet light, black and yet luminous, soft and angular, his sculptures with pure, sober and elegant lines are the result of a manufacturing process very personal to the artist who lets himself be guided by the resistance of the material in order to find a true synergy between the work and its environment and offer new perspectives in the landscape.

Strong and energetic while being pure and sober, Francis Guerrier’s sculptures seduce us with the voluptuousness of their curves and the momentum of their lines. A true link between earth, sky and sea, they reflect the personality of their creator: “Head in the stars and feet on the ground”.

Since 1930, in order to thank its most loyal customers, Etienne Nicolas publishes every year for Christmas a catalog illustrated by an artist. Today, this long series of 35 books is a real treasure for art and wine collectors. Over the years, Kees Van Dongen, Jean Hugo, Bernard Buffet, André Derain, Bernard Lorjou, Raymond Guerrier and Raoul Dufy, among others, have collaborated in the creation of these brochures.

We recently had the opportunity to acquire an exceptional set of 7 original drawings by Raoul Dufy reproduced in the 1936 catalog published by Nicolas & Draëger Establishment, a famous printer and engraver in Montrouge, entitled “Mon Docteur le Vin“. The 20 watercolors created for the occasion were the subject of an exhibition that same year at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris. We also found an original edition of the book, signed by Dufy.

From the first page, the tone is given: “My Doctor the Wine? Yes, because his precepts, as old as the world, are justified more and more each day by science. After the First World War, Marshal Pétain, in his introduction “Homage to Wine”, indicates that “wine has been, for the combatants, the beneficial stimulant of the moral forces as well as the physical forces – thus it has largely contributed, in its own way, to the Victory”. And the benefits of wine are listed in the summary: vitamins and radioactivity of wine; wine against typhoid fever, depression, anemia, diabetes or obesity; wine for the kidneys, the maintenance of youth and aesthetics, character and morale; indispensable to writers, artists and athletes. And finally, wine makes men handsome and promotes longevity! The quotation of Professor P. PIERRET will serve as a conclusion: “Wine carries with it cheerfulness, strength, youth and health. It is sunshine in a bottle”. So, who better than Raoul Dufy to illustrate such a book?

Painter of optimism, festivity and worldliness, Raoul Dufy has a marvelous look at the world and transmits through his colorful and poetic painting, a joyful feeling of well-being and life. As Pierre Camo says so well in “Dufy, l’Enchanteur” (ed. Marguerat, 1947) “Everything is fresh, lively, clear, joyful like spring in nature or youth in life”. The titles given to exhibitions and various tributes dedicated to the artist testify to this: “Raoul Dufy. Le Plaisir” (Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 2008); “Raoul Dufy. A Spectacle of Society” (Connaught Brown Gallery, London, 2016); “The Colors of Happiness” (Jean Cocteau Museum, Menton, 2017); “The Lightness of Raoul Dufy” (Angladon Museum, Avignon, 2017).

His style corresponds exactly to the spirit of “Mon Docteur le Vin“, a work linking humor, finesse and precision.

At the age of 13, the young Raoul imposed his choice to become a painter on his family of musicians and left his native Normandy to train at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Influenced at first by the Impressionists and then by the brilliance of color in the Fauves, he admired Cézanne more than anyone else and it was in the Provençal lands dear to Cézanne that he found his own language and developed his principle of “light-color”.

The essential characteristics of Raoul Dufy’s style were born and would never leave him: dissociation of line and color; sketched but dynamic and lively figures; chubby and voluptuous curves; simple, supple and expressive lines; flamboyance of color that becomes light. In 1936, the year of the publication of “Mon Docteur le Vin”, Dufy was already known worldwide and had personal exhibitions in New York, Brussels, Prague…

Endowed with an exceptional gift of drawing and coloring, it is through drawing and more precisely through watercolor that he reveals his true talent and releases his lively and graceful gesture. From the 1930s, Dufy gave more and more space to his graphic work and worked on the possibilities offered by the use of his “puddles of color” that precede his line.

Raoul Dufy does not seek to represent materiality but offers a very free and subjective interpretation of his subject where reality and imagination intersect. If one finds recurring themes and motifs in his work (orchestras, landscapes, portraits, horse races…), the artist is eclectic and expresses himself through various media, multiplying experiences: drawing, painting, sculpture but also decorative arts, illustration, tapestry, sets and costumes. His calligraphic surety, the simplicity and purity of his subject, his extraordinary sense of composition, the suppleness of his lines and the brightness of the colors dissociated from the line will remain recognizable among all, whatever the chosen support.

A relentless worker, he produced no less than 4,000 drawings and 2,000 paintings, among other ceramics, fabrics, tapestries… a fruitful career if ever there was one, and success and international recognition were at hand! One year before his death, in 1952, the XXVIth Venice Biennale awarded him the Grand Prize for Painting to crown his work.