ᐅ Sans titre by Jean Miotte (1982) | Painting

Artwork information

Technique

Acrylic on canvas

Date

1982

Dimensions

100 cm x 81 cm

Dimensions with frame106 cm x 87 cm

Signature

Signed on the back

Proof(s) of authenticity

Painting sold with a certificate of authenticity issued by the Jean Miotte Foundation.

State of conservation

Very good

Framing

Yes

Location

Toulouse, France

Description

Jean Miotte — Untitled, 1982

Created in 1982, this work by Jean Miotte immediately stands out for its balance and visual strength. Set against a luminous and open background, a few fluid black gestures move across the canvas while subtle shades of blue, grey, and ochre bring depth and a sense of breathing space to the composition.

Miotte’s entire visual language is present here: a free and vibrant painting where every mark matters. The artist achieves a remarkable sense of movement and space with very few elements, giving the work an elegant and refined presence. The composition feels both calm and energetic, making it particularly compelling within a contemporary interior.

A major figure of post-war lyrical abstraction, Jean Miotte is now represented in numerous international collections and institutions. Works from the 1980s are especially sought after for the maturity of their construction and the freedom of gesture that defines this period.

Acrylic on canvas, executed in 1982. Dimensions: 100 x 81 cm (106 x 87 cm framed). Signed and dated on the reverse.

Painting sold with a certificate of authenticity issued by the Jean Miotte Foundation.

The artist

Painter

Jean Miotte

Famous artist

Painter

Born in 1926

France

Bio

Jean Miotte (1926-2016) is a contemporary French painter connected with Lyrical Abstraction.

At 556 West 22nd Street in New York, a foundation is dedicated to a French artist: Jean Miotte. This is a remarkable recognition for a painter somewhat forgotten in his own country.

Born in 1926 in Paris, when he talks about his childhood during the war, Jean Miotte talks more about jazz than hunger or fear. He braved the curfew to join his friends and listen to Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, the rhythms of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman or Old Man River. Jazz, by its freedom, is a challenge and a form of resistance. It is with amusement that Jean Miotte tells how, at the beginning of his career as a painter, during endless discussions with other painters, he claimed that "never, never could there be any question of falling into abstraction!" The next day, he produced his first abstract painting! This was the starting point of a work completely dedicated to a lyrical, strong, turbulent abstraction.

In 1961, Jean Miotte received the Grand Prize of the Ford Foundation, which gave him access to a grant to work in the USA. He crossed the Atlantic and discovered the great American spaces. He buys a car with the money from his scholarship and crosses the great expanses. His paintings take on the dimensions of the country, the color becomes more vivid, more contrasted, the gestures become more ample. After selling his car, Jean Miotte moved to Soho and met several painters including Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Jacques Lipschitz and Alexander Calder. He had no less than three studios in Paris, Hamburg and New York. In the galaxy of abstraction, Jean Miotte, on the planet of the gestural, rubs shoulders with Georges Mathieu and Hans Hartung.

"He travels in his paintings like he travels in his life." Marcelin Pleynet