Born in Hungary in 1922, Simon Hantaï moved to Paris at the age of 26,
and fell in with André Breton's postwar Surrealist circle, where he was
quickly acclaimed by Breton himself. But it was not until the early
1960s that Hantaï developed the "pliage" or "folding method" that has
made him an influential figure on both sides of the Atlantic. Hantaï
began applying paint to folded canvasses, which--once the canvasses were
unfolded and stretched--resulted in irregular patterns of bold color
punctuated by strips of unprimed ground. Throughout the rest of his
career, Hantaï devoted himself to developing new techniques that slowed
down or automated the painterly gesture--a concept that stemmed in part
from the early influences of Surrealist automatism, Pollock's Abstract
Expressionism and Matisse's cut-outs. Hantaï was featured in the
Wexner's seminal As Painting exhibition of 2001, and his work is
housed in major collections worldwide, including The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. This elegant and comprehensive volume is published for
the Centre Pompidou's acclaimed Hantaï retrospective, held five years
after his death in 2008, and constitutes the first major publication in
English on his work.
