Georges Noël

Throughout Georges Noël's fifty-year career, an unusual diversity of styles is evident, yet his textured grounds and dynamic graphic interventions remain consistent.

Biography of Georges Noël

Georges Noël was born in Béziers in 1924 and raised in Pau. He studied painting and engineering before spending nine years as a designer-draftsman for the aeronautics firm Turboméca.

In 1956, he relocated to Paris to fully dedicate himself to painting. From the beginning, he was profoundly influenced by artists such as Dubuffet, Klee, Pollock, and Fontana.

From 1957 to 1968, Georges Noël was represented by the Galerie Paul Facchetti in Paris, regularly exhibiting in Europe and the United States. During this period, his work was associated with the French and Italian "informel" movement. His technique of applying paper to canvas or using torn and collaged newspapers reflected his admiration for Fontana.

In 1968, Georges Noël moved to New York, where his work took on a more structured, geometric, and architectonic style. He returned to France in 1983 to prepare for a major exhibition at the Abbaye de Sénanque, followed by a retrospective at the Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris in 1985. From then on, he exhibited regularly in Italy, Germany, and Japan, where his work was especially appreciated.

Solo exhibitions of Georges Noël's works have been held at various prestigious venues worldwide, including Galerie Point du Jour in Paris, Galerie John Lefebre in New York, Galerie Heseler in Munich, Galleria Cadario in Rome, Harkus Krakow Rosen Sonnabend Gallery in Boston, Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York, Nina Freudenheim Gallery in Buffalo, Galerie Christophe Gaillard in Paris, and many more. 

The artist died in 2010, leaving behind a body of work that continues to interest and inspire artists. Nowadays, Georges Noël's artworks are housed in prominent institutions worldwide. In France, his pieces can be found at the Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, and the Pinault Collection in Paris, as well as the Musée d’arts de Nantes. Internationally, his works are featured in esteemed collections such as the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Ise Cultural Foundation in Tokyo.

Georges Noël's Art Style

Although Georges Noël's art could be linked to Art Informel and Lyrical Abstraction, he consistently maintained his independence from any specific movement.

Though not drawn to Surrealism, Georges Noël's interest in drawing and "automatic writing" led him to create a unique medium of powdered pigments, sand, and glue, on which he inscribed his personal sign-language. This medium, varying from rough to smooth depending on his intentions or mood, captured the flow of his graphic impulses as they scratched or even tore the layered surfaces. His vocabulary of signs reflects a deep fascination with the magic and mystery of prehistoric, archaic, and tribal cultures.

His works on paper, typically characterized by spontaneous handwriting, appear on various surfaces, including washes, collages, and built-up textures. A dedicated and prolific artist, he also explored sculpture and produced several series of prints, primarily woodblock engravings.

In his later stylistic evolution, there's a synthesis between the gestural impulses of his early work and the more structured compositions from his New York period.