ANDRÉ LANSKOY (1902 - 1976)

Les soucis des inssouciants, 1960 Oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled and dated on reverse 95 x 144 cm 37 13/32 x 56 11/16 in. André Lanskoy “ Although each brushstroke represents for itself a transformed reality, it receives its true meaning in the context of the surrounding shades of color.” André Lanskoy is a Russian painter who was part of the New School of Paris, he was born in 1903 in Moscow and died in 1976 in Paris. His paintings are recognizable by their particularly vivid colors. He joined the White Army in 1919, which, after several deployments, brought him to Paris in 1921, a city he would never leave. Self-taught, he switched from figuration to abstraction between 1935 and 1941, during which period shapes became colored spots under his brush. From gouaches to oils, drawings, book illustrations, tapestries and mosaics, Lanskoy's work is diverse and varied without ever losing its accuracy. This painting from 1960 is a fine example of his search for abstraction. Getting rid of any recognizable physical form, he only keeps the color as a means of pictorial expression. Using seemingly disordered brushstrokes, his “tachist” style was strongly influenced by Nicolas de Staël, to whom he was very close.