Nicolas de Staël facts for kids
Nicolas de Staël (born January 5, 1914 – died March 16, 1955) was a French painter. He was born in Russia and became famous for using thick paint, called impasto, and for his very abstract landscape paintings. He also created art using collage, illustrations, and textiles.
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Early Life of Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His father, Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, was a Russian general.
In 1919, Nicolas's family had to leave Russia because of the Russian Revolution. They moved to Poland. Sadly, both his father and stepmother died in Poland. As an orphan, Nicolas and his older sister Marina were sent to Brussels in 1922 to live with a Russian family.
Starting His Art Career
Nicolas de Staël studied art and design at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and architecture at the Académie de St Gilles in 1932.
In the 1930s, he traveled across Europe. He lived in Paris in 1934 and later in Morocco in 1936. In Morocco, he met Jeannine Guillou, who was also a painter. She appeared in some of his paintings later on. He also visited Algeria.
In 1936, he had his first art show in Brussels. It featured his Byzantine-style icons and watercolors. In 1939, he joined the French Foreign Legion, a part of the French army, and left in 1941. Around 1940, he met Jeanne Bucher, who would become one of his art dealers.
Art During World War II
In 1941, Nicolas moved to Nice, France. There, he met artists like Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay, and Robert Delaunay. These artists inspired him to create his first abstract paintings, which he called "Compositions."
In 1942, Nicolas and Jeannine had a daughter named Anne. Jeannine's son, Antoine, also lived with them. In 1943, during the war, de Staël returned to Paris with Jeannine. These years were very hard for them.
Despite the difficulties, his paintings were shown in several group exhibitions. In 1944, he had his first solo show at the Galerie l'Esquisse. In 1945, he had another solo exhibition and his work was included in important art shows like the Salon de Mai and the Salon d'Automne. In Paris in 1944, he became friends with Georges Braque, a famous painter. By 1945, his exhibitions brought him recognition from art critics. However, times were tough, and Jeannine sadly passed away in February 1946 due to illness caused by not having enough food.
Growing Success as an Artist
Nicolas de Staël met Françoise Chapouton in the spring of 1946, and they got married in May. In October 1946, thanks to his friend, artist André Lanskoy, de Staël signed a contract with art dealer Louis Carré. Carré agreed to buy all the paintings Nicolas created.
By January 1947, the de Staël family moved into a bigger home because his art was becoming more recognized and selling well. In 1947, he became friends with his neighbor, American art dealer Theodore Schempp. Nicolas's new art studio in Paris was near Georges Braque's, and the two painters became good friends. In April 1947, his second daughter, Laurence, was born. In April 1948, his son Jerome was born. That same year, he started a long friendship with German artist Johnny Friedlaender.
His paintings began to get attention all over the world. In 1950, he had a solo exhibition in Paris. Schempp also introduced de Staël's paintings to New York, showing them in a private exhibition. He sold several paintings to important art collectors, including Duncan Phillips from the Phillips Collection. He had great success in the United States and England in the early 1950s. In 1950, Leo Castelli organized a group exhibition in New York City that included de Staël's work. In 1952, he had solo exhibitions in London, Montevideo, and Paris.
In March 1953, he had his first official solo exhibition in New York City. The show was a big success, both for sales and with critics. In 1953, he had an exhibition at the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C., which bought two more of his paintings. When visiting the United States in 1953, de Staël and Françoise visited famous museums like MoMA and the Barnes Foundation.
After returning to Paris, de Staël met New York art dealer Paul Rosenberg. Rosenberg offered de Staël an exclusive contract. De Staël signed with Rosenberg partly because Rosenberg was French and was an important dealer who showed many Cubist painters, whom Nicolas de Staël admired. By the end of 1953, the demand for de Staël's paintings was so high that Paul Rosenberg raised his prices and kept asking for more paintings. For his planned spring 1954 exhibition, Rosenberg asked for an additional fifteen paintings. This exhibition was also very successful. In April 1954, de Staël's fourth child, Gustave, was born. That spring, he had another successful exhibition in Paris. His new paintings showed a change from abstract art back to painting real objects, still-life scenes, and landscapes.
In the fall of 1954, he moved with his family to Antibes.
Death of Nicolas de Staël
By 1953, Nicolas de Staël was struggling and sought to be alone in the south of France, eventually settling in Antibes. He suffered from tiredness, trouble sleeping, and depression. He died on March 16, 1955, at the age of 41, by falling from his studio terrace in Antibes.
Nicolas de Staël is buried at the Montrouge Cemetery.
Nicolas de Staël's Legacy
Nicolas de Staël's painting career lasted about 15 years, from 1940, and he created over a thousand paintings. His work was influenced by many famous artists like Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Chaïm Soutine. He also admired Dutch masters like Rembrandt and Vermeer.
In the 1940s, de Staël started painting real objects, especially landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. Over time, he moved more and more towards abstract art. He developed his own unique abstract style. His paintings often featured thick, block-like areas of color that seemed to push against each other on the canvas.
His work was quickly recognized after World War II, and he became one of the most important artists of the 1950s. However, in his later paintings, he moved away from pure abstraction. He returned to painting real things like seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, and seagulls. This return to recognizable images in the early 1950s influenced other artists.
His painting style is known for its thick paint, showing marks from his brush and palette knife. He often divided the canvas into many areas of color, especially blues, reds, and whites. His most famous late paintings of beaches and landscapes are filled with sky and light effects.
Much of de Staël's later work, especially his thinner, diluted oil paintings from the mid-1950s, hinted at future art styles like Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. His bold and bright colors in his last paintings also predicted the direction of much modern painting, including Pop Art of the 1960s.
The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard has said that de Staël is his favorite painter. The use of bright primary colors in Godard's film Pierrot Le Fou was greatly inspired by de Staël's art.
Images for kids
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Left-side view of the house in Antibes where Staël died.
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Front-side view of the house in Antibes.
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Right-side view of the house in Antibes.
See also
In Spanish: Nicolas de Staël para niños
- School of Paris
- Tachisme
- Lyrical Abstraction
Sources
- Exhibition Catalogue, Nicolas de Staël, paintings 1950–1955, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NYC. 1997, ISBN: 0-9660769-1-5.
- Douglas Cooper, Nicolas de Staël, Masters and Movements, Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. London, 1961.
- Lefevre Fine Art, Thomas Gibson Fine Art, "Works on Paper" Nicolas de Staël, "Sans Titre", page 60
