artist: Gustave Singier (Belgian 1909-1984)
medium: colour lithograph
dimensions: 48 1/2 x 59 framed size (approx)
limited edition - 47/76
signed and dated 1957
presented in its original frame with new archival mat and backing and non-relfective UV glass
AU $1395 (approx US $995 / 840 EUROS / 155,000 yen / 735 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist biography
Gustave Singier was born 11 February,1909, Warneton. He was a Belgian non-figurative painter and print maker active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai.
Signier spent his childhood in German occupied Belgium, then moved to France in 1919. From the age of 14, he began to paint. In 1923 he enrolled as a student at the Boulle school, attending until 1926. From 1927, he worked as a draughtsman, designing interior architecture and furniture until 1936.
1936 could be considered to be a turning point in Singier's career as an artist: he met the painter Charles Walch who encouraged him as a painter, put him in contact with artistic circles and who began to exhibit Singier's work at numerous Parisian Salons.
In 1940, with World War II now underway, Singier was mobilised in the Belgian army and sent to Bagnols-on-Ceze after the German invasion of Belgium. From 1941 to 1944, he worked in the workshop of his cabinet maker father. In 1941, Singier joined a group of young artists who showed their work in the exhibition ‘Vingt Peintres de tradition francaise’ (Twenty Painters of the French Tradition) at the Braun Gallery, an exhibition in defiance of the Nazi military occupation.
In 1945 he was one of the founding members of the Salon de Mai. In common with many other painters of his generation, after the allied liberation of Western Europe, Singier discovered Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian and - through them - abstract art.
Singier was naturalised as a French citizen in 1947 and in 1949 he had his first solo exhibition at the Billiet-Caputo gallery. Between 1951 and 1954, he taught at the Ranson Academy, and from 1967 to 1978 at the Paris School of Art.
Singier is represented in numerous major public collections including Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris, Tate Modern, London. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and national galleries in Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Sydney, Melbourne. Wellington; Johannesburg. Oslo, Skopje, Brussels, Luxemburg. Liège, Vienna, and Basel.
He passed away on 5 May 1984. He is buried in Paris, in the Montparnasse Cemetery.