Jean Hélion

Jean Hélion, actually Jean Bichier (* April 21, 1904 in Couterne sur Orne, Basse -Normandie, † October 27th 1987 in Paris ) was an important French abstract and figurative painter of the 20th century.

Life and work

Hélion first practiced geometric- mathematical abstract painting based on the de Stijl group ( friendship with Theo van Doesburg ), before he turned to freer abstraction. The beginning of 1930 he co-founded the magazine Art Concret ( Doesburg, Otto Carlsund, Léon Tutundian, Marcel Wantz ) and in April 1930 editor of the only issue of this journal. Otto Carlsund from which came the money went back to Sweden, the audience reaction was also disappointing. Art Concret dissolved and early 1931 were Doesburg, Tutundian and Hélion founding members of Abstraction- Création. Helion worked from 1932 to 1934 in the same journal, he left the Abstraction- Création 1934. 1931 he traveled a good two months with the American painter William Einstein as a companion to the Soviet Union, a company that at first skeptical with regard to Communism led. Hélion met Vladimir Tatlin, but he noticed the lack of importance of constructivism in society. From 1936 to 1946 he lived in the United States of America, in New York and Virginia. He spent several months in 1938 in France, in 1939 volunteered for military service and was mobilized in January 1940. In June, he fell into German captivity, which he spent in a camp in Pomerania and on a prison ship in the harbor of the Pomeranian provincial capital Szczecin. He succeeded in early 1942 with the help of Mary Reynolds, who offered him shelter in Paris, to escape.

In New York, he had some success and became the inspiration of the American Abstract School ( admirers: Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, the art historian Meyer Schapiro ). Hélion was impressed at this time mainly from the work of his comrade in exile Fernand Léger. He had a successful retrospective exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim 's Art of This Century in February / March 1943, but then turned, inspired by his young wife Pegeen Vail / Guggenheim, Aktzeichnung to. Hélion but had some time moved towards figurative painting. This turn first met with incomprehension and horror, but influenced in their use of space, color and atmosphere of artists like Gilles Aillaud and Eduardo Arroyo, as well as Jim Dine later. Frequently recurring themes were newspaper readers, pumpkins, and hats. Hélion, the blind end of the 60s became, for a time forgotten, but was honored on the occasion of his 100th birthday with a major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.

Family

After the divorce from his first wife married Hélion 1932, the American Jean Blair. He lived temporarily with her in Rockbridge Baths, Virginia. According to Jean Blair's death in 1944 Pegeen was (actually Jezebel Margaret ) Vail ( 1926-1967 ), the daughter of the patron of the arts, collector and gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim, his third wife. They separated in 1958. Hélion married in 1963 Jacqueline Ventadour whose marriage had failed with Pegeen brother Michael Cedric Sindbad Vail ( 1923-1986 ). Pegeen married in 1958 the English painter and member of the Situationist International (founding member in 1957, 1958 expelled ) Ralph Rumney.