Marsouins

=== MAX PAPART (1911-1994)===
=== Max Papart (1991-1994), french painter and engraver  ===

" »Through the window you can observe the past or the future ».

Max Papart was born in   Marseille (France) on 19th december 1911 and died on 29th august 1994. He was a french painter, engraver, illustrator and collagist.

Introduction

He was born in Marseille (France) where he lived until the 1930's. He moved to Paris definitively in 1933 but had many friends and galleries in the south of France, especially in Nice, and Vallauris, where he met his friends : James Coignard, César, Clavé, Jacques Prévert, Jean Cocteau, Georges Ribemont-Desseignes.

Max Papart's paintings and graphics are suffused with sunny humor and the bright colors of the French Riviera where he was born. Working in the cubist style, he depicted circus scenes, flirting couples, soaring birds and similar cheerful subjects with flat, overlapping planes of contrasting colors and textures. Max Papart is considered a master printmaker. He was born in Marseille, France and later moved to Paris where he learned the techniques of classic engraving. In 1960, he added to the classic processes the technique of etching with carborundum invented by his friend Henri Goetz. In following years Papart taught printmaking at the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes. He continued making his own plates and supervising the hand printing of his prints until he died in 1995. One of the most intriguing intellectual concepts which Papart achieves is a "window" through which the viewer senses the past or future, or even another time or place. It has been said the Papart does not "paint," he "composes." His compositions come together in a symphony of line, shape and color. Papart always believed that each painting has its own meaning and needed no interpretation from him. His paintings, in his own words, "force the viewer to think, and it is for the viewer to respond to the art based on his own personal experiences."

"Through the window, you can see the past or the future." Max Papart’s art is based on a carrier which was initated very early: he began to draw from 4 years old and painted from 8 years old, studied in Académie des Beaux-Arts ,and in museums the masters as Cranach, Paolo Ucello, Pietro della Francesca, Tiziano,Vermeer, Rembrandt, Poussin, Hubert Robert, Delacroix, Velasquez, Courbet, Corot (to whom he made hommages in the last part of his life). He researched all kind of art expression from prehistoric engravings to street art in New York. Cubism and surrealism are the bases of his reflexion. He though himself as a follower of Kandinsky and Klee in his space’researches. His art however does not refuse the portrait, the landscape or the still life, but include them in a researchal form in permanent evolution. Not avoiding the social critic in an humoristic way, he opens a window over the beauty of life. Very found of cinema, he works on the movement of architectural lignes, based on the “gold number”, music, planets, unifying masculine and feminine courbes in the way of the masters of the “Fetes Galantes” of XVIIeme and XVIIIeme centuries (Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard) Influence dby Kurt Schwitters, he developated the art of collages as a main character of his works. He also explored abstraction in blue and red, influenced by his friend Yves Klein. As a colorist influenced by Provence’s light and Italy, he realized himself as a main creator in graphics and teached to many students in Paris. He developed with Robert Dutrou, (the French printer of Miro, Chillida, Tapiès, Alechinsky, Miotte, Seguí, Sugaï, ) the biggest and the most colorful graphics of the world (published by gallerist Ken Nahan in United States) His mains apports in XXth century art are The maitrise of drawing and engraving The colorist technique and the carborundum technique of engraving The unification of abstraction and figuration in a soft and energic way A philosophy of love and peace that every one can find and develop through the window of liberty.

Max Papart’s art is based on a carrier which was initated very early: he began to draw from 4 years old and painted from 8 years old, studied in Académie des Beaux-Arts ,and in museums the masters as Cranach, Paolo Ucello, Pietro della Francesca, Tiziano,Vermeer, Rembrandt, Poussin, Hubert Robert, Delacroix, Velasquez, Courbet, Corot (to whom he made hommages in the last part of his life). He researched all kind of art expression from prehistoric engravings to street art in New York. Cubism and surrealism are the bases of his reflexion. He though himself as a follower of Kandinsky and Klee in his space’researches. His art however does not refuse the portrait, the landscape or the still life, but include them in a researchal form in permanent evolution. Not avoiding the social critic in an humoristic way, he opens a window over the beauty of life. Very found of cinema, he works on the movement of architectural lignes, based on the “gold number”, music, planets, unifying masculine and feminine courbes in the way of the masters of the “Fetes Galantes” of XVIIeme and XVIIIeme centuries (Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard) Influence dby Kurt Schwitters, he developated the art of collages as a main character of his works. He also explored abstraction in blue and red, influenced by his friend Yves Klein. As a colorist influenced by Provence’s light and Italy, he realized himself as a main creator in graphics and teached to many students in Paris. He developed with Robert Dutrou, (the French printer of Miro, Chillida, Tapiès, Alechinsky, Miotte, Seguí, Sugaï, ) the biggest and the most colorful graphics of the world (published by gallerist Ken Nahan in United States) His mains apports in XXth century art are The maitrise of drawing and engraving The colorist technique and the carborundum technique of engraving The unification of abstraction and figuration in a soft and energic way A philosophy of love and peace that every one can find and develop through the window of liberty.