Patrick Boudon (1944–2019), Abstract Composition, école De Paris, 1963

Patrick Boudon (1944–2019), Abstract Composition, École de Paris, 1963

Medium: oil on canvas. Signed in cursive with red letters and dated 1963.
Dimensions: 65 × 54 cm.

Created in 1963, this composition belongs to the early phase of Patrick Boudon’s artistic exploration, when the young artist was experimenting with a style that was still strongly gestural but already oriented toward the construction of form. The work is situated within the context of the new Parisian painting movement of the early 1960s, spanning Expressionism, Cubism, and the experiments of the CoBrA group.

Large, raised brushstrokes, rich in impasto, build a composition that conveys extraordinary energy, in which Boudon seems to work on the boundary between figuration and abstraction. From the interweaving of the marks, an anthropomorphic presence emerges—almost a head or a mask—without ever being fully defined.

Patrick Boudon was born in Florac (Lozère) in 1944. He enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris in 1962 and completed his studies there in 1965. His first solo exhibition took place as early as 1963 at the Galerie Raymond Duncan in Paris.

Throughout his career, he exhibited in France and abroad, including at the Mafalda Davis Gallery in New York, the Galleria Salsomaggiore in Italy, and the Museum of Feira de Santana in Brazil. In the 1970s, he founded GAMP (Galeries-Ateliers Modernes de Paris), a meeting and workspace for artists from various disciplines.

After meeting Pablo Picasso, his artistic exploration gradually shifted toward a personal style of figurative art, recognizable for its large faces, emphasized hands, and intense expressive power. A significant portion of his body of work was destroyed in a fire at his studio. Patrick Boudon died in Montmartre in 2019, leaving behind a significant legacy in French painting of the second half of the 20th century.