François Morellet
"Untitled (drawing - project)", 1958
Pencil and yellow color pencil on paper
10 ⅝ x 8 ¼ inches (27 x 21 cm)
Courtesy of Estate François Morellet

Selected by Lynn Zelevansky

François Morellet (1926 – 2016), a prolific, self-taught artist, developed a radical approach to geometric abstraction in his paintings, sculptures and installations over a career spanning more than six decades. Morellet’s work has been included in a number of major international group exhibitions, including Documenta in Kassel, Germany [1964 (with GRAV), 1968 and 1977] and the Venice Biennale (1970 and 1990). In 1971, his first solo museum show was organized by the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, which subsequently traveled throughout Europe. Other major retrospectives of Morellet’s work have been organized at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1977), the Centre Pompidou (1986 and 2011) and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume (2000) in Paris. He was also the subject of a North American retrospective in 1984-85, which traveled to Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain, the Brooklyn Museum and Miami’s Center for the Fine Arts. In 2010, Morellet became the second artist to have a work inaugurated during his lifetime at the Musée du Louvre, the permanent in situ installation L’esprit d’escalier. His work is represented in major public collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Dia Art Foundation (New York), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Seoul Museum of Art, Tate Britain, Tel Aviv Museum, Kunsthaus Zurich and Nationalgalerie Berlin.