Galerie Claude Lemand

EDGARD PILLET. NEW YORK, 1956. Gouaches on paper.

Claude Lemand.
Edgard Pillet was influ­enced by the geo­metric typo­graph­ical design of American cities and even more so by their intense elec­trical lighting – as opposed to the shortage that hit Europe during the post-war years. Edgard Pillet’s geo­metric painting con­sists of lines and flat sur­faces that are soft­ened and enhanced by layers of Impressionistic touches of colour. Using that tech­nique with oil paints or gouaches, Pillet depicts the typog­raphy of cities, streets and har­bours of the New World, from where derive the titles of some of his works: Harbour, Docks, ….

Sylvie Nordmann, 1955-1957.
Pillet moved to USA to teach at the uni­ver­sity of Louisville, Kentucky, and later at the Art Institute of Chicago for two years. There, he showed he was a par­tisan of con­tem­po­rary French art and gave sev­eral con­fer­ences on that sub­ject. In the book The World of Abstract Art, he pre­sents the trends of con­struc­tive art, of lyrical abstrac­tion and of abstract Impressionism in France. He illus­trates these with works painted by his fellow artists such as Soulages, Mathieu, Vasarely, …
He found him­self in the American artistic cir­cles and had a priv­i­leged encounter with Jackson Pollock, prompting the devel­op­ment of his painting towards a more lyrical and graphic approach. Six exhi­bi­tions were held during his stay in USA, at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York, the Zoe Dusanne Gallery in Seattle and at the Cliff Dwellers in Chicago.
One of Pillet’s stu­dents, Léo Zimmerman, pub­lished 1,000 copies of an album of eight engrav­ings printed in offset, which were dis­tributed across USA, Japan and Finland. However, Edgard Pillet decided to return to Europe as the American artistic cir­cles back then were totally com­mitted to pro­moting Abstract Expressionism and to making New York the new cap­ital of art.