Composition

Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
This canvas dates from around the time that Jean Hélion, a leading proponent of abstraction in the 1930s, began to coalesce his arrangements of colored shapes and gradated volumes into more explicitly figurative representations. Composition evokes some of the subjects that would soon preoccupy him: bust-length, suited men wearing brimmed hats, viewed from the front, back, or in profile. Hélion said of his figural and abstract pictorial modes: “They are the same thing, or nearly. Planes, volumes, spaces. Strong colors, fine tones, the rhythms of all nature. You can even, if you like, mix my figures and my abstractions
Caption
Jean Hélion Couterne, France, 1904 – 1987, Paris, France. Composition, 1939. Oil on masonite, 15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Lucile E. Selz, 1991.283.2. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1991.283.2_PS9.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Composition
Date
1939
Geography
Place made: France
Medium
Oil on masonite
Classification
Dimensions
15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm)
Inscriptions
Verso: "HAUT/Hélion/17 Jan. 39/(Va)"
Credit Line
Gift of Lucile E. Selz
Accession Number
1991.283.2
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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