Jean DegottexCarnet
1958
Indian Ink on paper
4.92 x 6.89 in ( 12.5 x 17.5 cm )

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Inquiry - Carnet, 1958

Degottex has the habit of noting the most concrete steps of his work from day to day, without any comments, lessons or lyricism. This page is extracted from a notebook containing 39 Indian inks which belonged to Mr. Jean-Claude de Feugas. The notebook is signed and dated by the painter on the last page.

Jean Degottex, is a French painter, born in 1918 in Sathonay-Camp. At the end of the Second World War, Degottex met painters belonging to the Lyrical Abstraction movement, for which he adhered.

The first gallery to exhibit him in 1949 is Denise René. In 1951, he received the Kandinsky Prize.

In 1955 he met André Breton, who introduced him to Zen thought and oriental calligraphy, in particular that of China. It is from this discovery that Degottex's artistic research work will take another turn: all his next works will be influenced by surrealist automatic writing and by the essential principles of Zen philosophy.

The realization of a table takes place thus, the artist plunges into a meditative state which then allows him to apply dark colors on the bottom of his canvas, which thereafter, this state of meditation allows to prepare the gesture creative.

Jean Degottex died in 1988 in Paris.