Pierre Soulages

Pierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver and sculptor. He is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour ("Both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own."). He sees light as a matter to work with; striating the black surface of his paintings enables him to make the light reflect, allowing the black to come out from darkness and into brightness, thereby becoming a luminous colour.

From 1987 to 1994, he produced 104 stained glass windows for the romanesque Abbey church Sainte-Foy in Conques (Aveyron, France). In 2006, a composition of 1959 sold for 1.200.000 euros at Sotheby's.

You can visit his official web site here.

Portrait photo courtesy of the artist and Robert Miller Gallery.