1926 | born in Cholet |
1948-75 | Worked in his parents' business; self-taught approach to painting (mainly landscapes, but also portraits and still lifes) |
1950 | Turns to abstract painting; first solo exhibition in Paris |
1960 | Member of the "GRAV" (Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel), a group of kinetic artists that existed until 1968 |
1963 | Neon as a material |
1968 | Interest in architecture and space; public commissions in Paris, Otterlo, etc. |
1992 | "Relâche n° 1" as a complete work made of randomly arranged materials of his previous work |
2016 | died in Cholet |
François Morellet is difficult to grasp only as an artist of geometry. In the 1950s, he began to open up infinite space to his random images by thinking the pictorial structures beyond the format limitations. Unlike Jackson Pollock, he did not cultivate an all-over principle, but based his works on a fixed system - whether on canvas, as neon works, or in other techniques. As close as he is to geometric abstraction and Minimal Art, he brings emotional and humorous elements into his work, something that only the generation after Morellet has embraced. He himself referred to Dadaism in this regard. In 1982, the artist wrote: "For some years ... I realize that there is still much between geometry and me ... that I no longer want to exclude. Therefore, about five or six years ago, I decided to no longer conceal these inevitable ties. So I went back to my "almost geometries" and raised the constraints, instead of hiding them, to the main theme of my paintings. That's why I could actually give my work the title Geometry of Constraints."