Cercle et Carré – 90 years
at Frieze Masters
October 3 - 6, 2019, Booth G15
“To me, the circle and the square (in 1929) were the sky and the earth, as symbolized by the ancient Oriental religions; they formed a kind of rudimentary alphabet by means of which everything could be expressed with the most limited means.” - Michel Seuphor
At Frieze Masters 2019, Galerie Thomas presents artists that gathered in the “Cercle et Carré” group, 90 years ago in Paris.
In 1929, Joaquin Torres-García and Michel Seuphor founded the “Cercle et Carré” group and the journal of the same title. They aimed to tie together a huge number of befriended artists working in the abstract field, in order to establish a counterbalance to the Surrealist group that seemed to dominate the modern Paris art scene in those days. Prior currents and associations of abstract and constructivist artists such as De Stijl, Bauhaus artists and Russian avant-garde appeared to have lost their appeal to young artists as well as to the public, so the idea of “Cercle et Carré” melted a large number of painters and sculptors. In their first exhibition in 1930, no less than 130 works by 64 artists were presented to the Parisian public at Galerie 23 in the Rue La Boétie.
Important works of some of the most renowned artists of “Cercle et Carré” will be shown at Galerie Thomas’ booth, by Jean Arp, Willi Baumeister, Wassily Kandinsky, Serge Charchoune, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Kurt Schwitters, Michel Seuphor, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Georges Vantongerloo including two works shown in the original “Cercle et Carré” exhibition in 1930 in Paris by Jean Gorin and Luc Lafnet.
“Cercle et Carré” was absorbed when “Abstraction – Création” was founded, while the journal was kept alive by Joaquin Torres-Garciía. The short but fierce blossoming of “Cercle et Carré” was an important statement of some of the most influential artists of abstraction and modernism and opened doors for the post war development of modern and contemporary art.
Galerie Thomas will accompany this core area by a selection of works from the gallery’s main program, specialized in German Expressionism, with works by Paul Klee and Marianne von Werefkin, Classical Modern art, with Max Ernst and Chaim Soutine, as well as international post war art with Alexander Calder, Yves Klein and Gerhard Richter to highlight a few.
Press contact and printable photographic material:
Vera Daume +49 89 29 000 835 / [email protected]
