Gérard Schneider
1896 - 1987The painter Gérard Schneider is internationally recognised as one of the fathers of lyrical abstraction, alongside Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung. His free and expressive painting occupied a central place within this new abstraction, which emerged in Paris in the immediate post-war period.
In the immediate post-war period, in the context of full European reconstruction, lyrical abstraction radically imposed itself on the artistic scene. Paris was one of the most important centres, and Schneider was one of the pioneers. It was a period of exhibitions, initially collective, following the one organised in 1946 by the Denise René gallery, which Schneider took part in alongside Dewasne, Deryolle and Hartung, and then solo, after his first appearance at the Lydia Conti gallery in 1947. At the same time, his work was diffused abroad and met with critical acclaim: he took part in the Venice Biennale in 1948, exhibited in the United States, at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York in 1949, and at “Advancing French Art,” which was held in several museums across the country, but also in South America and Japan.
In a constant desire for renewal, Schneider’s art evolved in the 1960s towards more luminosity, and his palette became enriched with bright yellow, purple, green, red and blinding white. His vehement, powerfully contrasting and calligraphic traces transcribed the painter’s inner self; his liberated, rapid gesture was expressed through a variety of perfectly mastered techniques: oil painting, Chinese ink, pastel, watercolour. From the 1970s onwards, paper became the preferred medium of the painter, whose thirst for expressiveness was never fully quenched.
Gérard Schneider’s works are part of important collections including those of the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, the MOMA in New York, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Museo d’Arte Moderna in Milan and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro.
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Gérard Schneider, Les Audigers, 1972. Photographer: André Villers © Archives Gérard Schneider
“We must see abstract painting in the same way as we listen to music, feeling the emotional interiority of the work without seeking to identify it with any figurative representation. What is important is not to seeing abstraction, but feeling it. If music touches me, moves me, then I have understood something, I have received something.”
Gérard Schneider
“Lyrical abstraction was foremost incarnated by Schneider as Cubism was incarnated by Picasso.”
Michel Ragon
Artworks
Gérard Schneider
Sans Titre, 1963
Oil on canvas
73 x 92 cm | 28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in.


Gérard Schneider, Sans Titre
1953

Gérard Schneider, Sans Titre
1953
Art Fairs
Artists
- Karel Appel
- Victor Brauner
- Alberto Burri
- Alexander Calder
- Lynn Chadwick
- Geneviève Claisse
- Claudine Drai
- Jean Dubuffet
- Maurice Estève
- Sam Francis
- Simon Hantaï
- Hans Hartung
- Le Corbusier
- Fernand Léger
- Mao Lizi
- Georges Mathieu
- Alicia Penalba
- Serge Poliakoff
- Judit Reigl
- Jean-Paul Riopelle
- Gérard Schneider
- Pierre Soulages
- Geer van Velde
- Victor Vasarely
- Bernar Venet
- Claude Viallat
- Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
- Ossip Zadkine