Famous black French painter Pierre Soulages dies at 102

French painter Pierre Soulages, a star of post-World War II European abstract art and known for his use of black, has died at the age of 102, according to the Soulages Museum in his hometown of Rodez.

Soulages became extremely influential for his reflection on black, which he called “noir-lumiere” or “black light”, and is regarded as the greatest living French painter of recent years.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a photo of himself sitting with the artist smiling, paying tribute, saying: “Pierre Soulages was able to reinvent by revealing light. Black. Beyond darkness, his work is a vivid metaphor from which each of us draws hope.”

In 2019, a major retrospective of Soulages’ 100th birthday was held at the Louvre, where the museum called him “an important figure in non-figurative painting” and paid tribute to his “extraordinary vitality”.

Soulages’ early paintings of walnut brown and black lead his life’s work: his “outrenoir” or “beyond black” paintings.

Those were almost pure black, with paint squeezed onto huge canvases, then scraped with a knife and stroked with a paintbrush to the point of quasi-sculptural.

Soulages discovered the technique in 1979 while working on a painting he considered a failure, “The Black Swamp”.

The viewer’s reflection and changing daylight become part of the art, which he says creates “a new psychological space”.

Born in Rodez, in the Occitania region of southern France in 1919 after the First World War, Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages was fascinated by ancient stones, landscapes and craftsmanship from an early age.

He started painting in 1936 and 1937, which made him interested in working in Paris.

During this time he met his future wife, Colette Lawrence, while teaching in Montpellier, with whom he would spend the rest of his life.

In 1943, Soulages made an important encounter with the artist Sonia Delaunay, who introduced him to abstract art.

But it wasn’t until the end of World War II, where he served, that the young painter was able to open his first studio in the French capital, holding his first exhibition in 1947.

Soulages’ work was shown in major American exhibitions in the 1950s, including a 1955 show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In his native France, he is regarded as a national treasure.

His legacy includes the production of some 104 stained glass windows from 1987 to 1994 for the Romanesque Sainte-Foy de Conques Abbey – a place he visited as a child, which he mentioned in interviews as an influential part of his life moment of power.

At the 2009 Pompidou retrospective in Paris, Soulages said he couldn’t tell when he fell in love with black.

“I can’t say when, it’s forever,” he told reporters, beginning a chant: “Black is for anarchy, it’s rebellion, it’s mourning, but it’s also party…”

Soulages, dubbed “the most famous living French painter” by the Centre Pompidou, was prolific until the end.

In 2001, he became the first living painter to have an exhibition at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Soulages Museum opened in 2014 in his hometown of Rodez, in the south of France.

Painters are quick-witted and live in the moment.

When asked about his work, he once joked to The Associated Press: “It’s hard, I almost want to tell you what I’m going to do tomorrow.”