Réquichot, the second wind of surrealism

Born in 1929 in the small village of Asnières-sur-Vègre in the Pays de la Loire Region, Bernard Réquichot was one of the most important protagonists of art in France of the 1950s. A short and tormented life - the artist committed suicide in 1961 at just 32 years old - in which Réquichot nevertheless stood out as one of the most prominent representatives of Informal Art. His artistic production was expressed in just over 6 years between 1955 and 1961. Réquichot, in the context of an artistic scene where gestural and material abstraction occupies a dominant place, pushes his painting beyond all limits. In his paintings the material is mixed with the knife. Inextricable networks, graphic traces invade the canvas. The young French artist works by stratifying his artworks, introduces collage into his painting, creates almost hypnotic sequences with spiral graphic motifs where black ink and white tempera give shape to illegible writings that recall his literary production. Misunderstood genius, avant-garde without a school, a lonely man tortured by his own ghosts, today Réquichot is celebrated in a large monographic exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.