Edgard Pillet
Encyclopédie Larousse. “Edgard Pillet. French painter and sculptor (1912-1996). Studied at the School of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, then that of Paris. His early paintings were inspired by Neo-cubism, before leaning more towards abstraction in 1948. General secretary for the magazine Art d’Aujourd’hui (from 1949 onwards). He founded the Atelier d’art abstrait in 1950 in Paris with Jean Dewasne. Following a two-year stay in America where he taught, he redirected his abstraction towards symbolic landscape painting, before introducing astral figures and geometric compositions (Creusets series) into his works around 1960. He is also the author of several architectural designs, such as that of the wall facade of the University of Sciences’ amphitheatre in Grenoble.”
Translated from French by Valérie Hess.
Sylvie Nordmann. Painting. "Precision and passion. Geometric abstraction, Constructed art, Cold abstraction, Lyrical abstraction, School of Paris, Art of the Fiftees, … whatever may be the artistic trend which Pillet falls under. His oeuvre executed between the 1950s and 1990s express an acute understanding of colour, interlaced with a capacity for formal creation that gives an overall striking harmony and a very personal poetic content. Characterised by a constructive rigour and constant innovation, Pillet explores colours and shapes always within a permanent balance between passion and precision. He analyses all the aspects of a theme he invents and combines it with variations from former themes through different means of expression. With a formalist rigour that excludes coincidence, facility or grandiosity, Edgard Pillet suggests an intellectual and sensitive dialogue to the viewer. He offers a big autonomy of comprehension to the latter with regards to his own intuition, just as in music.”
Translated from French by Valérie Hess.
Works in Public Collections
MNAM Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
MAM de la Ville de Paris
MOMA, New York
Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Alger
Musée Ateneum, Helsinki
Museum of Modern Art, Eilat
National Museum, Djakarta
Finland Museum, Imatra
Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, Paris