The world turns a step behind the emergence in painting

In homage to Pierre Bazin

To Luc Tuymans, with heartfelt friendship

A relation between man and the world

In his famous works called Pensées, Blaise Pascal opined the following: “After all, what is Man’s place in Nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all things, and infinitely far from understanding either. The end of things and their underlying principle are infallibly concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.” Son of a fisherman and an apprentice silversmith, tirelessly hiking the Brittany coastline or the hills in and around Paris, as a warmup for the Sainte-Victoire slopes and the landscapes of Normandy’s Vexin region, Pierre Tal Coat has seemingly always assigned the space on his canvas to embody the emergence of this lost relation between humankind and the world. Here’s what Pascal termed “the space between nothing and all things”, this impenetrable secret between oneself and one’s surroundings that needs to be infallibly expressed; from this nothingness where everything emanates and from this boundlessness where everything winds up engulfed, yet each painting regardless of its circumstances still bears witness. Should the subject be a “Slab of meat” painted in the years 1928-30, a Autoportrait dated 1936, Massacres from 1937, rocky landscapes circa 1950’s, the majestic Surgissant signed in 1978, or even the last of the Autoportrait produced during the period 1980-85, all these works have been gracefully and exceptionally assembled for the occasion of this anthological and highly retrospective exhibition. In drawing inspiration from the human form, the natural landscape or an actual pictorial depiction, Pierre Tal Coat’s entire portfolio is characterized through the lens of a dedication to pictorial undertaking, or rather a series of successive steps with each one procuring for the artist the license to zero in and exhaustively pursue the subject. “That’s what life’s all about, focusing on the world as it is and avoiding efforts to reshape the world to suit one’s preconceptions. As an example, this piece here gives the impression of gushing forth, of establishing existence, becoming something, yet in coming to be, it disappears. Nothing takes on life without decomposing at the same time1.” Tal Coat spent his entire existence as a living being and painter observing, feeling, learning and understanding. He looked at nature and the world around him from the standpoint of nature itself and the world around. His mission was to see, hear, believe. And the reality placed on his path availed itself to him, reached out to greet him. “I’ve looked and observed to the best of my ability how best to orient my view, ascertain how the world views me2.” He recognized this view, embraced it and exposed it through each brushstroke. “There’s Me and there’s the world, Me with the world, Me in the world3”, stated his friend and philosopher Henri Maldiney. Now it’s inscribed in his work. Unadorned. With a simplicity that’s striking by its lack of dramatic impact. Streamlined to the fullest. Practically undressed. “Man is merely a transparency superimposed on nature’s transparency4”, according to his other close confidant the poet André du Bouchet.

What it means to be a painter

Pierre Louis Corentin Jacob was born in 1905 in Brittany, at Clohars-Carnoët. He would become a ward of the State following his father’s death on the battlefield of Argonne, which gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in Quimperlé. Around the mid-1920’s, he moved to Paris, attended the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière Art School and worked as a mold maker at the Sèvres porcelain factory. In his paintings from that period, his attention seems primarily directed toward the nature of Man, his presence, his attachment to the land, relationship to work and how he interacts with his fellow human beings.

The figures are oversized and fill the frame, reminding us of the work of his elders Constant Permeke or Jean Fautrier, painters who, despite careers that didn’t overlap, were both still admirers of Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox, derived from a pictorial pilgrimage. During his first Paris show at the Fabre Gallery, under the direction of Henri Bénézit, he adopted the pseudonym Tal Coat, meaning “wooden forehead” in Brittany’s Gaelic dialect. At the beginning of the 1930’s, his circle included Paul-Émile Victor, Ernest Hemingway, Balthus, Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Gertrude Stein (whose portrait he would paint on multiple occasions) and, notably, Antonin Artaud, Francis Gruber and Alberto Giacometti (for whom not only did he produce several portraits, but a rare sculpted head as well). His landscape paintings broached the metaphysical: Trees from 1933, accompanied by sacred portraits, Autoportrait from 1936 or, viewed from another angle, a series of figures delimited through use of a harsher color scheme. In 1936, during a trip to the south of France, he met Pablo Picasso and examined his host’s body of work with great care. Following the series entitled Vanité as a reaction to the Spanish Civil War, Tal Coat undertook a series entitled Massacres featuring intertwined lines drawn with an increasingly finer point. As if each character in the scene was wrapped in a thin lacy mesh that could be portrayed as either a protective shield or a bullseye vulnerable like a shooting range target. During his non-engagement at the time of German Occupation, accompanied by André Marchand he made his way to Aix-en-Provence, where Charles-Albert Cingria and Blaise Cendrars had taken up residence. His resulting work was a chaotic landscape pattern striking a resemblance with the expressionism of a certain Chaïm Soutine, not to mention brightly-colored interior scenes replicating cubism to an extent. And let’s not overlook a rare self-portrait from 1943 inspired jointly by Vincent Van Gogh and Picasso. In 1946, after a short stay in Paris, he again headed southward and settled in at the workshop in Château Noir, when Paul Cézanne was painting in Le Tholonet. He spent time with the philosopher Henri Maldiney, his wife the Belgian painter Elza Vervaene and the poet André du Bouchet. Whereas Maldiney’s prime motivation during this time was to grasp “the meaning of being human”, Tal Coat was more focused on truly understanding “what it means to be a painter”.

A fundamental break from the past had thus surfaced: no longer was the emphasis on depicting something but rather on exposing the actual nature of the actual thing in its painted form. Hadn’t Eugène Leroy sought in his work to “infuse real light into painted color”? In contrast with Leroy, Tal Coat eschewed the power of color so as to concentrate on this conundrum of the painter’s dual relationship with both the painting and Man’s place in the world, hence the absence of illustrations or expressions of any subject or theme, but uniquely the relentless search for an incarnation with/via/by painted matter. “Such an approach does makes sense since the canvas needs to lend this impression of eruption, which implies adding textures in addition to removing substance. Eruption stems from what has been removed; they don’t happen out of thin air5.” Moreover, as the Second World War drew to a close, for the series entitled Profil sous l’eau, bundles of dark lines serve to pierce in adjacent slashes the surface of a gently streaming profile. The head is shrunk to a faceless ghost; shadow is a mere black line with a weighty effect; the water reflective of those times comes crashing, driven and destructive. For the subsequent series of Rocher, Failles and Mouvement d’eau during the years 1946-54, only lines and interruptions would remain, distilled into markings yet with perfect precision, and just a few shaded patches in the middle of the painting positioned with great aplomb. “When looking at the work, no need to dwell on what could be done with the visual impression. Instead, look for what’s there”, insisted his contemporary, the painter Wols.

To live reality

“My approach always sets out to incorporate reality to the greatest extent possible. But since we tend to ignore what’s real, we’re always in the position of anticipating reality or being driven toward it, but we’re never on the same plane with reality, which is not a notion but the actual action of living6.” Having experienced walking side by side with Cézanne’s landscapes, especially Mount Sainte-Victoire, what’s left is for the paintbrush to actively make its way through the painting: links and nodes; fissures in the rocks and a few splashes of shadow and light showcasing the fault lines; a multiple presence in the depicted space combined with light darting in and out of each presence. “All sensations abound with meaning for those who draw life from them7.”, noted Henri Maldiney. The need is thus felt to open, expose, implement and magnify the painter’s canvas to incorporate that of the world. “Bursting to make contact, the sharp edge advancing without restraint, the torn perspective proves to be most revealing. This tension can only be accommodated by a countervailing tension perceived in the interconnected elements populating the painting8 […]”. Tal Coat shared the fruit of his latest search in the Galerie de France and won over both critics an the public alike. As of 1954, he partnered with Galerie Maeght, ultimately generating renown among a more international audience. He met Raoul Ubac, and his work became increasingly rupestrian, in replicating the primitive and basic techniques that first gave rise to the very notion of representation, self-figuration amidst the surrounding world. This was acknowledged, for example, in the 1968 exhibition entitled Foyer, overseen by André du Bouchet. “Emerging from the depths […] of this energy that extends beyond the visible scope of action, such an expansive limitless force9 […]” Put otherwise, continuously and tirelessly pursuing this quest, without pause and without cutting corners, leads to Pascal’s abyss, where humans originate and get engulfed by the infinite… In 1961, Tal Coat made a move to inland Normandy, at the Chartreuse de Dormont, near Saint-Pierrede-Bailleul and not far from Vernon. This would be his final residence until his passing in 1985, aside from regular travels to Switzerland. The purity of color came back with a vengeance, but deeply bonded to the paint applied, as if radiating forth. Light is generated by the painted matter and approaches us like a phosphorescence nearly reaching our eyeball. “It’s not the color that merits attention but rather the curvature that is constantly bending you with the same rebound effect as water rippling off of rocks along its path10.” Everything stems from the attributes and properties inherent in the painting and, moreover, is forged using such properties, among them and by them. Testimonials here comprise the monumental formats of Escaliers de vignes from 1971-72 or Surgissant dated 1978, as well as all the small shapes faintly brushed from the color box covers, with paint being symbolically traced to its origin. For both examples, this intersection encompasses not just nature’s successive states, but more importantly the very physicality of these states: their presence, their mass, their density, their irregularities, their motions, their texture, their contrasts, their tensions… “It’s all about looking at the world, to get as close to the action as possible when examining phenomena, given that expression is so closely tied to the structure of materials, beyond just the lines, colors and hues11.” Let’s not neglect their sensations, meanings and sensualities, when addressing sight or touch, but also sound (forceful color tones), smell (the pungency of the wet earth, bark moss or solidified sea foam they bring) or even taste (a penchant for sweetness vs. bitterness).

Existing entails being where the world is Between living and acting, doing and painting, what surges forth therefore from the occupied, empty and connecting pieces of the landscape reemerges in the respective thicknesses of these three pieces in the painting, as memories of the Argonne wartime trenches where so many soldiers, including his father, were struck down and where their abandoned corpses would paradoxically serve to nourish the land? And what part of the foot’s contact with the ground or the hand’s touch of the rock actually touches us by ricochet, in the form of feedback from Tal Coat’s walks in Brittany, Provence or the Normandy countryside, Henri Maldiney’s mountaineering expeditions, Paul-Émile Victor’s explorations of the depths? And what the landscape evokes of phenomena, paintings bring them to fruition in embodied form... Tal Coat’s entire work fits nicely into and forever remains within Maldiney’s compact thought that still opens onto the infinite: “Existing entails being where the world is12.” So, for a painter: existing is to infuse into painting the world’s compass. As such, both Maldiney and

Tal Coat distinguish themselves from Martin Heidegger’s thinking: with respect to his own existence, Man can enjoy the same relationship as that of a stone with itself. What procures “existence” for Man is what brings him into “being”, namely the experience that Man is capable of having with this preexisting stone, it’s what the stone tells him or doesn’t tell him, or what it says without him, away from him. “You know that rocks have not just served as a refuge but have always attracted humankind, not solely as shelter but as their own unique entity and reserve. An entity just like you and me. These were places imbued with a soul, a conscience13.” Pascal’s challenge cited in the introduction returns to help decipher the impenetrable secret of Man’s presence in the world. Tal Coat offers the following synopsis: “We think we grasp the world, but we’re only being visited by it14.” “I’m not painting the here and now, I’m painting the transition”, according to Montaigne in his famous Essays.

For the last five years of his life, Tal Coat also produced uncovered faces, barely drawn - at times entitled Portrait or when appropriate Autoportrait, where all that surges forth again seems to fade at the same painting instant, at the apex of the same brushstroke. And this output reminds us of the pictorial principle of Otages by Jean Fautrier: expressing the impossible resolution between Man and the world, a being and an original thought, an individual and his body, a shape and its contour, a part of matter and its nature at the very moment when everything will be taken away, made to vanish. “A face? It’s a sensation I felt, in search of myself, to chase myself. Ultimately, when one decides to move, the motion is only toward oneself; in other words, there’s always a part of you that has overtaken you, it’s the most punctual part and a part I’ve been trying to engage with15 […]”, asserted Tal Coat, faithful to the stance of Henri Maldiney: “Being present is being able to foretell what happens next16.” And what has surpassed us looks back at us trying to catch up. That’s exactly what Tal Coat had attempted throughout his life; such was the project he devoted his career to under the proviso of “staying upright”: confront this part of himself that had taken charge, cope with this fortunetelling part worn like a torch as a means of illuminating the road that lies ahead.

Return its glance

“Poetry is merely the sign of what stimulates, just an echo, in reality Man’s shadow; there’ll always be someone foolish enough to live a life exclusively for these signs, this shadowy space. Saying things through use of these signs17 […]”, notes André du Bouchet. And this applies to painting, in particular that of Tal Coat, as well. As such, isn’t painting inviting us to be - or rather become - this “rather foolish person”. Let’s listen then to what painting is telling us “by [its] signs”, at its very core. According to Bachelard, “Things have a way of looking back at us. Might they only seem indifferent to us because we look at them with indifference? But to the unobstructed view, everything’s a mirror; for genuine and meaningful observation, it’s all about depth18.” Standing tall before this body of work, which also stands tall before us, let’s face what’s facing us and “return its glance” so as to penetrate all the necessary depths.

Marc Donnadieu

Il faut que la couleur soit comme le sang bu par le sable

Color needs to be treated like blood being imbibed by sand

Pierre Tal Coat

Index

Page 5

Autoportrait, 1935, huile sur toile, 89 x 116 cm

Provenance : Galerie Henri Bénézit, Paris

Expositions : Recherche de l’Art Français Contemporain, Musée National de Stockholm, 1949 Tal Coat, Centre

National d’Art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Musée

National d’Art Moderne Paris 1976 Tal Coat devant l’image, Musée Rath Genève, Musée d’Unterlinden Colmar, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1997-1998

Page 21

Le quartier de viande, 1926, huile sur toile, 55 x 46 cm

Provenance : Galerie Henri Bénézit, Paris

Exposition : Tal Coat - Hajdu, Kunsthalle Bern, 1957

Page 23

Les Arbres, 1933, huile sur carton marouflé sur panneau parqueté, 81 x 110 cm

Expositions : Tal Coat, Musée d’Histoire et d’Art

Luxembourg, 1974 Tal Coat, Unéo Royal Museum, Tokyo. Open Air Museum, Hakone, 1975 Forces nouvelles

1935-1939, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1980

Tal Coat devant l’image, Musée Rath Genève, Musée d’Unterlinden Colmar, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1997-1998

Page 24

Massacres, 1936-1937, huile sur toile, 24 x 33 cm

Provenance : Galerie Henri Bénézit, Paris

Expositions: Tal Coat - Hajdu, Kunsthalle Berne, 1957

Tal Coat, Unéo Royal Museum, Tokyo. Open Air Museum

Hakone,1975 L’Écriture Griffée, 1934-1960, Musée d’Art Moderne Saint-Étienne, 1990-1991 Face à l’Histoire 19331996, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre de création industrielle, centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1996-1997

Page 25

Massacres, 1937, huile sur toile, 22 x 27 cm

Préparation pour le Massacre de 1937 (128 x 161 cm) conservé au centre Georges Pompidou

Expositions : Tal Coat, œuvres anciennes, 1927-1939, Galerie de France, Paris, 1949 Toiles anciennes Tal Coat, Gruber, Marchand, Galerie à l’étoile scellée, Paris, 1953-1954 Tal Coat, Centre National d’Art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Galeries nationales d’exposition du Grand Palais, Paris 1976 Face à l’Histoire 1933-1996, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre de création industrielle, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1996-1997

Page 26 - 27

Rocher, 1948, huile sur toile, 50 x 149 cm

Provenance : Galerie Henri Bénézit, Paris

Page 29

Le rocher vert, 1950, huile sur toile, 78 x 78 cm

Provenance : Galerie de France, Paris

11 Pierre Tal Coat, portrait

12 Pierre Tal Coat (à gauche.), Pont Aven, 1926

13 Pierre Tal Coat, portrait, photographie de Claude Gaspari

14 Anne de Staël et Michèle Aittouarès à la Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès, Paris 2017

15 Françoise Simecek, ?, André du Bouchet dans la Drôme, photographie

15 de Pierre Tal Coat

16 Pierre Tal Coat dans l’atelier de Dormont

17 Jacques Prévert, Pierre Tal Coat, Claude Gaspari, Vernissage à la

15 Galerie Maeght, 1962

Exposition : L’école de Paris 1900-1950, Royal Academy of Arts Londres 1951

Page 30

Foyer, 1968, huile sur toile, 73 x 60 cm

Provenance : ancienne Collection André du Bouchet

Expositions : Tal Coat devant l’image, Musée Rath Genève, Musée d’Unterlinden Colmar, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1997-98

Page 31

Grotte, 1949-1950, huile sur panneau, 78 x 78 cm

Provenance : ancienne collection André du Bouchet

Expositions : Tal Coat - Hajdu, Kunsthalle, Berne, 1957 Tal Coat Centre National d’Art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Galeries nationales d’exposition du Grand Palais, Paris 1976 André du Bouchet. Pierre Tal Coat, Château de Ratilly, Treigny, 1979 Pierre Tal Coat, Les années Provence, Galerie d’Art, Espace 13, Aix-en-Provence, 1996

Page 32

Failles, 1948, huile sur toile, 27 x 35 cm

Provenance : Galerie Henri Bénézit, Paris

Page 36

Foyer 1, 1973, huile sur toile, 73 x 60 cm

Expositions : Tal Coat, Galerie de France et Bénélux Bruxelles, 1976 Abstract? De natuur van het schilderij, Roger Raveelmuseum, Machelen-Zulte, Belgique, 2012

Page 41

Tracteur, 1979-1980, huile sur panneau, boite à cigares, 8,5 x 11,5 cm

Exposition : Tal Coat La liberté farouche de peindre, Musée Granet Aix-en-Provence, 2017-2018

Page 54

Sans titre, 1973-1974, huile sur toile, 33 x 33 cm

Exposition : La couleur de Tal Coat, Hôtel des Arts Toulon Provence Méditerranée, Toulon, 2006

Page 71

Surgissant, 1978, huile sur toile marouflée sur panneau, 123 x 93 cm

Expositions : Tal Coat devant l’image, Musée Rath Genève, Musée d’Unterlinden Colmar, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1997-1998 Pierre Tal Coat, Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Bignan, 2008-2009 Pierre Tal Coat, Le Carmel, Tarbes, 2009

Page 73

Sans titre, 1975, huile sur toile, 61 x 50 cm

Exposition : Tal Coat devant l’image, Musée Rath Genève, 1997-1998

Page 81

Autoportrait, 1980, huile sur panneau, 41 x 29 cm

Exposition : Tal Coat La liberté farouche de peindre, Musée Granet Aix-en-Provence, 2017-2018

18 Musée Rath, Genève, vernissage de l’exposition Pierre Tal Coat,

15 devant l’image, 1997. De gauche à droite : Rainer Mason, Hervé Eon,

15 Sylvie Eon Balthazar, Benoît Sapiro, Michèle Aittouarès, Jean Leymarie,

15 Pierrette Tal Coat Demolon, Cathy Chambon, Gérard Guillot Chêne,

15 Jean-Pierre Bénézit

19 Pierrette Tal Coat Demolon, Michèle Aittouarès, vernissage à la Galerie

15 Berthet-Aittouarès, 29 rue de Seine, Paris,1995

10 Exposition Tal Coat à la Galerie Berthet Aittouarès, au 29 rue de Seine, 15 Paris, 1995

Principales expositions

1969 Trente ans de dessins, Palais de l’Europe, Menton

1975 Royal Museum, Tokyo

1976 Rétrospective Tal Coat - Grand Palais, Paris

1984 Centre culturel Noroit, Arras

1985 New Museum of Contemporary Art, New-York

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper

Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Genève

1987 Musée de la culture, Bourges

Musée, Arthothèque - médiathèque et Ecole régionale des Beaux-Arts, Valence

1988 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes

1991 Musée Matisse, Le Cateau Cambrésis

1993 Château du Roi René, Tarascon

1994 Hommage, Biennale de Sao Paulo

1995 Centre d’Art Nicolas de Staël, Braine-l’Alleud

1996 Chapelle des Ursulines, Quimperlé

Les Années Provence, Espace 21, Aix-en-Provence

1997 Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Genève

Musée d’Unterlinder, Colmar

Musée Picasso, Antibes

1998 Kunstmuseum, Winterthur

IVAM, Centre J. Gonzales, Valencia

1999 Tal Coat, L’énergie du blanc, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

2000 Au fil de l’eau, Musées d’Aix en Provence

2002 Centre d’art plastique, Royan

2005 Carré d’art Nîmes

2006 Centre Méditerranéen d’art, Toulon

Artothèque Galerie Pierre Tal Coat, Hennebont

Carré d’art, Nîmes

2008 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes

Première exposition et préfiguration du centre Pierre Tal Coat,

Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Bignan

2009 Musée Estrine, Saint-Remy-de Provence

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tarbes

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes

2011 Domaine de Kerguéhennec ,Bignan

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Mons

2015 Hotel de Limur, Vannes, dessins

2017 Pierre Tal Coat et André du Bouchet, Fondation Saint John Perse, Aix en Provence

La liberté farouche de peindre, Musée Granet, Aix en Provence

Tal Coat, regard sans frontières, Musée Quesnel-Morinières, Coutances

2019 Tal Coat 1905-1985, Musée de Pont-Aven

Expositions à la galerie Berthet-Aittouarès

1992 Pierre Tal Coat, Hans Seiler (exposition collective)

1994 Les ruisseaux vont au ciel (exposition collective)

1995 Pierre Tal Coat, dessins, aquarelles, peintures

1997 Pierre Tal Coat, C'est le vivant qui importe

1998 Pierre-Tal Coat, présence

2002 Pierre Tal Coat, lavis, peintures

2005 Pierre Tal Coat aurait 100 ans

2007 Pierre Tal Coat, traverse

2011 Pierre Tal Coat

2016 Pierre Tal Coat

Collections publiques

Allemagne

Sammlung Zimmermann, Cologne

Autriche

Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz

Belgique

Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

Fondation Roi Baudouin - Fonds

Thomas Neirynck, Bruxelles

Chili

Muséo de la Solidaridad

Salvador Allende, Santiago

Etats-Unis

The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore

Museum of Modern Art, MoMa, New York

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

France

Cabinet d’Art Graphique du Musée

National d’Art Moderne, Paris

Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence

Musée Picasso, Antibes

Musée des années trente, Boulogne-Billancourt

Musée d’Unterlinden, Colmar

Musée Cantini, Marseille

Musée de la Préhistoire, Solutré

MAC/VAL, Musée d’Art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry

Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Cohue, Vannes

Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (CNAP)

FRAC Auvergne, Bretagne, Haute-Normandie, Ile-de-France, Poitou-Charentes

Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Centre Pierre Tal Coat, Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Conseil général du Morbihan

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse

Suède

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Suisse

Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Cabinet des Estampes, Genève, Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Genève

Fondation William Cuendet & Atelier de Saint-Prex, Vevey

Publications de la galerie

Pierre Tal Coat, surgissement de la peinture 1925-1985, textes de Anne de Staël et Marc Donnadieu, 2023

Vera Molnar, Couper, coller, construire, texte de Vincent Baby, 2022

Dans les pas de Hans Hartung, Along Hans Hartung’s path, texte de Pierre Wat, 2020

Eric Antoine, L’usage du temps, The use of time, texte de Pierre Wat, 2018

Henri Michaux, Le dessin est exorcisme, texte de Pierre Wat, 2018

Vera Molnar, 1% de désordre ou la vulnérabilité de l’angle droit, texte de Serge Lemoine, 2016

Pierre Tal Coat, Nous sommes visités par le monde, éditions Galerie Berthet Aittouarès, 2016

Antoine Schneck, du masque à l’âme, textes de Pierre Wat et Jérôme Clément, 2015

Le Journal Ernest Pignon-Ernest - Jean Pierre Schneider, textes de Henri-François Debailleux et Véronique Bouruet Aubertot, 2015

Jean Degottex, Du signe à l’écriture, de l’écriture à la ligne, texte de Pierre Wat, 2013

Le Journal - Présence italienne

Albanese - Dessi - Botta - Nunzio, textes de Henri-François Debailleux et Lorand Heygyi, 2013

Le Journal - Parti pris de la peinture

Degottex - Buraglio - Viallat, texte de Pierre Wat, 2012

Jean Pierre Schneider, Le vif du sujet, textes de Bernard Chambaz et Alain Meunier, en coédition avec la galerie Sabine Puget, 2011

Antoine Schneck, photographies, textes de Laurent Boudier et Yaël Pachet, 2010

Alexandre Trauner, 50 ans de peinture pour l’histoire du cinéma, préface de Bertrand Tavernier, 2009

Marfaing, peintures de 1970 à 1986, en coédition avec la galerie Protée, 2008

Jean Pierre Schneider, peintures, texte d’Itzhak Goldberg, 2008

Étienne Viard, Sculptures, texte de Laurent Boudier, 2007

Jean Dieuzaide, Corps et Âmes, photographies, texte de Guy Goffette et Hervé Le Goff, 2006

Hans Hartung, Hors champ, les années 1970, peintures, textes d’Alain Madeleine Perdrillat et Jean François Aittouarès, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 2006

John Craven, La beauté terrible, photographies, textes de François Nourissier et Christine Mattioli, 2005.

Pierre Bonnard, La volupté du trait, dessins, texte de Guy Goffette et Jean-François Aittouarès, 2005

Petit inventaire à l’usage des amateurs, dessins, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 2005

Mario Giacomelli, L’ermite de Senigallia, photographies, textes de Jean Dieuzaide et Véronique Bouruet-Aubertot, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 2004

Daniel Frasnay, photographies, textes d’Hervé Le Goff et Iliana Kasarska, 2003

Petit inventaire à l’usage des amateurs, dessins, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 2003.

Slimane, peintures et dessins, textes de Jean Lacouture, Pierre Amrouche, Rabah Belamri, Fellag et René Souchaud, 2003

John Craven, 200 millions d’Américains ou l’Amérique des années 60, photographies, textes d’Edmonde Charles Roux et Iliana Kasarska, 2002

Pierre Bonnard, L’œil du chasseur, texte de Antoine Terrasse et Guy Goffette, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 2002

Pierre Tal Coat, Terres levées en ciel, texte d’Yves Peyré, en coédition avec Pagine d’Arte, 2002

Mario Giacomelli, Vintages 1954-1965, texte de Jean-Louis Schefer, 2001

Henri Michaux, Histoires d’encre, texte de Jean-Louis Schefer, en coédition avec Pagine d’Arte, 1999

Jean-Pierre Corne, Les bornes du silence, textes de Jean-Claude Schneider et Jean-Jacques Lévêque, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 1998

Tal Coat, C’est le vivant qui importe, peintures et dessins, en coédition avec la Galerie Aittouarès, 1997.

Remerciements à

Anne de Staël

Xavier Demolon

Michel Dieuzaide

Claude Gaspari

Bertrand Hugues

Thomas Popesco

Antoine Combes

Sabine Carion

Pierre-Paul Vander Borght

Traduction : Robert Sachs

Photographies des œuvres : ©Bertrand Hugues

Photographies p.6 - p.19 : ©Michel Dieuzaide

Photographie p.13 : ©Claude Gaspari

Pierre Tal Coat ©ADAGP, Paris, 2023

©2023 Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès

ISBN : 978-2-490315-06-2

Première de couverture : Sans titre, 1977, huile sur panneau 16 x 33 cm

Quatrième de couverture : Autoportrait, vers 1975, mine de plomb sur papier 36 x 13 cm