Object Type: Painting

Medium and Support: Gouache on paperboard

Accession Number: 2024.0003.0004

Credit Line: Gift of Rebecca and Jack Drake

Jean Dewasne was a painter and sculptor born May 21, 1921, in Lille, France. His first forays into art were in childhood paintings and classical violin training where he learned the discipline required to be an artist. Dewasne began training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1930s; initially interested in studying architecture, he dropped out after two years of studies to pursue painting full-time. His first feature in an exhibition was in 1941at Galarie Esquisse, this was, however, before he began experimenting with abstraction. By 1945, Dewasne joined a collective of artists in France who pioneered abstraction at the Salon des réalités nouvelles. At the same time, Dewasne began working in sculpture, using car parts and other reclaimed materials as a canvas for his nonfigurative paintings. The paintings and sculptural works he created gained him renown in the French art community, leading to Dewasne becoming the first artist to win the Kandinsky Prize, named for the revolutionary abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky.

The painting Composition is an example of Dewasne’s greater oeuvre of nonfigurative paintings composed of vivid colors. His background in architecture plays a large role in the composition of his works, combining the traditional angular shapes we expect in abstract art with fluid curves and circles.