.jpg)
Week 18/01/2021
I have decided to start a column, focusing on my favourite artists. I want to create this as a personal digital time capsule to look back on. I would like to see which art I was influenced by at the age of 20, and then in turn maybe one day when I’m 40. All the artists will be chosen individually during the week, there will be no prejudice in whether the artist is alive or dead, whether I’ve seen their work in person or through a new Covid-19 digital gallery view. Perhaps I will love some of the work, perhaps not.
I wanted to start with an artist whose work I have seen in person. Only in December, after seeing this piece, most likely for about the seventh time, I decided I would take note of the artist's name and carry out some research.
Jean Helion.
His work has been displayed at Tate Modern in the ‘all collections on the collection route’ since 2002. Tate Modern was the first gallery I properly remember visiting with my family. In primary school at the weekends, we would drive in the car to London. Memories of trips when I was younger mainly revolved around the food, in this case Leon. The Mediterranean small fast-food restaurant behind Tate Modern. Who would have thought my first gallery memory wasn’t about the art itself but about wolfing down a rice and meatball dish.
I used to find galleries and museums exhausting. My Mother and Father dragging us round, trying to culturally develop our brains by showing us the world. I would find it rather miserable, complaining all the time and longing for a bench in the middle of a large gallery to sit on to rest my weak legs. Later, while at school I was allowed independent Saturday trips up to London with friends consisting of bubble tea shops, new Instagram trend foods and crossing the millennium Bridge to get to the big, impressive Tate Modern. Trips would be made up of embarrassing vain photo shoots against walls in the gallery.
In recent years I have found the Tate modern to be an escape. The enormity of the former power station, the height of the rooms, and the loud echo of whispers created by visitors.
During the Covid 19 pandemic I have managed to visit Tate Modern three times. Each time I have loved how empty it’s been. There is no battling to get the perfect view of a painting, or to read the Display caption without blocking anyone else. In a weird way it’s sad, the loud groups of schoolchildren or tourists that you might find irritating are missed. Some of the personality of the gallery is lost. Maybe that is why when I passed Jean Hélion ‘abstract composition’ I found the colours, the boldness yet the subtlety compelling.
‘Abstract composition’ painted 1934.
In the section called Artist and society: a view from São Paulo: abstraction and society.’ The medium is oil paint on canvas. The piece is a frame within a frame. A small cloth canvas with a block beige background. The piece has a geometric feel about it, yet there is no order to it. Nothing is symmetrical or consistent. Yet certain shapes have a curved feel to them due to the colour gradient applied. It almost looks like the shapes are hanging on a piece of string swaying slowly from side to side, like clothes on a washing line. The piece is small the whole thing being no larger than 45 x 53cm. What I like about this piece is the pencil outline of the shapes is visible, making it look to me like work in progress. The painting looks engineered, clearly designed and created with a lot of planning. I believe this piece has elements of Cubism and reflections of Bauhaus - but I can see an element of a typographic style.
In the next room at the Tate in ‘Media networks: modern times.’ There is another Jean Hélion piece called 'Ile de France.’ A larger scale piece, it is clear the two pieces are from the same artist. Published in 1935, a year after the previous. The background colour has changed from a plain wash of beige to a light greeny grey with a royal blue block taking up 1/6 of the Canvas. In this piece there are a lot of 2D elements, a 3D effect is created on the gradient curved shapes. Similarly, this piece is classified as abstract painting and the relationship between controlled colour and bold curving lines is evident.
While carrying out more research on Hélion I found a lot of his other paintings to be still life, portraits created with the medium of oil pastels, chalk and watercolours. Although the shapes themselves are beautiful I prefer the pieces in Tate due to the brave and daring colours. The opacity of the paint is eye-catching and striking.
His work can be found in the Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice and of course the Tate in London.
I wanted to add a small section at the bottom to talk about Jean Hélion himself. I am aware this is unusual to introduce the artist right at the end nevertheless I wanted the main focus to be his work. Born in France in 1904. He is considered to be one of the most influential abstract artists of his time, focusing on Cubism and the relationship between space and colours. As well as painting he was a established writer, many of his books are published. During the war Helion was taken prisoner in 1940 and sent to a camp in Poland. In 1942 he escaped and made his way back to France. I was interested to see if there was an obvious difference in his work after the war. I could see no difference in terms of colour and expressiveness which I am surprised by. Hélion spent his last few years moving between Europe and the States, he died in 1987. Hélion last artwork was an expressionism piece created in 1983 called ‘Remake.’
When this pandemic is over and the galleries in London reopen I urge you to go see his work, I’m sure it will be in the Tate for many more years. Plus it's free! I wanted to end this first entry (Week starting 18/01/2021) with a quote from Jean Hélion ‘I understand abstract art as an attempt to feed imagination with the world built through the basic sensation of the eyes.’