Simon Hantaï

Renowned for his kaleidoscopic abstract works, Simon Hantaï developed the technique of pliage (folding), where a canvas is crumpled, knotted, painted over evenly, and then unfolded to reveal a pattern of shifts between pigment and surface. 

Biography of Simon Hantaï

Born in Bia, Hungary, Hantaï attended the Budapest School of Fine Arts from 1941 to 1946. He relocated to Paris in 1948 with a government scholarship, but when it was withdrawn due to his homeland's increasing Sovietization, he chose to remain in Paris.

In December 1952, he met André Breton, joining the Parisian Surrealists and creating several imaginative animal-themed paintings. However, after encountering Jackson Pollock's work, he parted ways with Surrealist ideas in 1955. Pollock's action paintings and the Abstract Expressionists' art directly influenced Hantaï's shift toward large-scale abstraction. 

Starting in 1960, Hantaï began creating pliage paintings, viewing the process as a fusion of Surrealist automatism and the sweeping gestures of Abstract Expressionism. This technique defined his later career, taking on various forms—sometimes a network of sharp folds on unpainted canvas across the piece, other times a monochrome mass occupying the center of an unprimed canvas. 

In 1966, Hantaï left Paris for Meun, France, where he became a French citizen. His reputation grew steadily in France during the 1960s and 1970s, highlighted by his representation of France at the 1982 Venice Biennale. Shortly after, he retreated from public view, resurfacing only in 1998 to exhibit new works.

Simon Hantaï passed away in 2008 at his Paris residence, leaving behind a collection of fractal-like compositions blending deliberate and spontaneous mark-making.