Jean Capdeville (1917–2011) The Birds, C. 1970

Jean Capdeville (1917–2011) – The Birds, circa 1970

Jean Capdeville (1917–2011)
The Birds, circa 1970
Gouache, acrylic, and chalk on paper
Dimensions: approximately 73 x 64 cm
signed in the center

Provenance: the artist’s estate. The work is sold with a certificate from the Jean Capdeville Committee.

Created around 1970, at a time when Jean Capdeville had fully established his artistic language, Birds is a work in which the subject is implied rather than explicitly depicted. Suspended forms, broken movements, marks that traverse the surface: the title evokes not so much the bird itself as the sensation of flight.

On this large sheet of paper, gouache and acrylic create planes of color—some matte, others more fluid—while chalk scratches the surface with a dry line, somewhere between drawing and writing. The interplay of layers and overpainting gives the work a real depth and the presence of a painting.

A work characteristic of the artist’s maturity, a singular figure in postwar abstraction deeply attached to Catalonia.