Simon Hantaï (1922–2008) ranks among the most important representatives of international post-war modernism. Born in Hungary, the artist emigrated to Paris in 1948. After a surrealist phase he turned to Art Informel in the 1950s, before a turning point followed in 1960: Hantaï developed the pliage comme méthode — the folded canvas, which he worked with oil or acrylic paint and then unfolded again. In 1980 he received the Grand Prix National des Arts Plastiques.
The exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda brings together around 40 key works from four decades and honours Hantaï’s contribution to international post-war abstraction as a sensuously moving celebration of colour. The works come from major collections, among them the Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art in Geneva, the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Musées d’art moderne in Paris and Saint-Étienne.