© Michel Dieuzaide
"Tal Coat's painting without image does not imitate nature, but lets it appear and reveal itself in the beat of the moment." Jean Leymarie in Tal Coat, 1992
Pierre Tal-Coat, whose real name was Pierre Jacob, was a French artist born in Brittany in 1905. After starting out as a figurative painter, he took part in the "forces nouvelles" movement in the second half of the 1930s. From the Second World War onwards, Tal-Coat moved towards abstraction, culminating in his final years with almost monochrome canvases. Even when abstract, his paintings are always drawn from reality. Tal-Coat's aim is not to represent the world, but to make things and the constant movements of nature visible.