#art, Nicolas de Staël, artist

Well, I must confess that I knew little about this painter born in St. Petersburg in 1914. Another one they skipped at art school… He was an artist that worked on canvases, illustrations and also textiles… He is known for his impasto and also, they say, abstract landscape painting. I would not really consider them landscapes if they are abstract and if they are landscapes they I would not call them abstract. But such are the «experts» (good grief experts!)… In 1919 his family fled to Poland because of the Bolsheviks. Both his parents died there and he was sent to live with an older sister in Brussels that set him up with a Russian family… de Staël, of course, studied the fine arts. He studied decoration and design at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts… He then travelled throughout Europe and even to Morocco… He joined the Frech Foreign Legion in 1939… In 1941, after being demobilised from the service, he moved to Nice and there he met Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay. It was there and with their artistic influence that he started creating his first abstract paintings, or «Compositions»… I think his work is rather interesting and I am sure it was much more interesting in their time. However, I think he is an important artist to know as he is definitely a part of art history.

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