The bilingual catalogue Au cœur de l'abstraction. Collection de la Fondation Gandur pour l'Art [At the Heart of Abstraction. Collection Fondation Gandur pour l'Art] accompanies the exhibition presented from 2 July to 20 November 2022 at the Fondation Maeght (Saint-Paul de Vence, France), and offers a fascinating immersion into abstraction from the 1950s to the 1980s. Under the direction of Yan Schubert, curator of the fine arts collection and of the exhibition, whose texts appear alongside those of Adrien Maeght, Jean Claude Gandur and Lucie Pfeiffer, the book unveils all of the 100 works exhibited.
Structured into nine thematic segments, the exhibition charts the evolution of non-figurative art and its various trends from the 1950s to the late 1980s. Conceived chronologically, the route offers insights into four decades of creativity during which artists revisited the very foundations of painting in the wake of the war and envisioned new forms of expression. Using innovative techniques and materials, and inventing new tools helped them to emancipate themselves from a form of painting regarded as outdated. The interrogation of the world - and of the abyss to which the war had dragged them - involved a radical rethinking of painting, which serves as the leitmotif of this exhibition. The post-war years were thus a ground for constant experimentation by a generation that sought to cast the foundations for a new style of painting free of any shackles.