Jean-marie Planque (1932-1992) Tribute To Nicolas De Staël 1968

Artist: Jean-Marie Planque 1932-1992 Work: Tribute to Nicolas de Staël Magnificent abstract work with its original wooden frame. Dimensions with its frame: 35.5cm x 18cm Provenance: Planque Family Collection. Biography: JEAN-MARIE PLANQUE 1932-1992 Pupil of Paul Delvaux at the start of his career. Monotype and engraving have sometimes alternated with graphic design over time, because the artist has made a lot of experiments in this area. Many of the works remained in abeyance because the spirit and the hand were solicited at the same time by painting, but also because the creator was a perfectionist and anything "unwelcome" was immediately put aside. He wanted the best according to his own criteria and this requirement separated him a little further from his contemporaries, who were more and more inclined to rush their work. In fact, he frequented few people, a few studio acquaintances who were not even always friends, simply passers-by visiting. It was quite by chance that the Roman painter Carlo Bazzoni introduced me to Jean -Marie Planque less than two years before her death. I remember from this visit, the memory of a warm welcome without useless words, in the middle of a studio filled with a large crowd... of paintings. He said things simply , with words righteous, with a smile. Oil painting, without being in opposition to drawing, is nevertheless very different and clearly provides information on the artist's research. Color plays a preponderant role here, which generally favors blues. Sky and sea, color of peace and return to oneself, blue is available at Jean-Marie Planque in a wide variety of tones. In the painted works, we feel the rigor of the line much greater than in the drawing, a kind of severity in the layout, leads the artist to build with enormous restraint, as if the brush resisted improvisation and playfulness but this denier reclaims its rights in many works because the artist's pictorial quest is woven with joy and supported by a kind of interior music. For this artist who did not physically travel, the journey was in the graphics. Its destination owed much to the chance of a composition that imposed itself with force. If Jean-Marie Planque did not go further than Paris (and rarely), his interior landscape was so rich that he invented lands of sunshine, villages in the hills. By discovering these steeples and these houses, names of places that the artist has never seen impose themselves on those who have actually crossed them on some road in Europe. Constructed, the art of Jean-Marie Planque is powerfully so. Whether in the human figure, in the dream country, or in an allegory, the painting rises, rises in an irresistible momentum. Even if the curve prevails in some silhouettes or if the touch is more luminist in some portraits, it is the spirit of construction that prevails, a construction in height, a call towards infinity. Even when round and curved blend with angular shapes, it is the work of the builder that triumphs like a great tidal wave carrying vitality. during his lifetime he humbly refused to exhibit because he felt below his Masters. At his premature death in 1992 his widow Gerda did her utmost to have her talented husband recognized, made several exhibitions and 3 biographies on the work of her late husband's talent.