De Staël - The boats

Nicolas de Staël, Baron Nikolaï Vladimirovitch Staël von Holstein (1913-1955) born in Saint Petersburg, is a French painter of Russian origin.

His career spanned fifteen years, from 1940 to 1955. A prolific artist, during these years he painted more than a thousand canvases with diverse influences — Cézanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Braque, Soutine and the Fauves, but also the Dutch masters Rembrandt and Vermeer. Refusing labels and trends, just like Georges Braque whom he admired, he worked relentlessly, destroying as many works as he created. In his frenzy of painting he constantly rubbed shoulders with the abyss, finding agreements that no one before him had dared to attempt. Tense, nervous painting, always on the edge of a razor, like the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh whom he joined in suicide.

De Staël brought with him artists from a new abstraction movement from the 1970s, including Jean-Pierre Pincemin, and the artists of New York neo-formalism or abstract expressionism from the New York School, including Joan Mitchell.

Nicolas de Staël, "The Boats", 1954