Composition
Gouache on paper laid down on canvas: 54 x 72 cm
Signed & Dated 1974
Gérard Schneider was born in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland in 1896. He travelled to Paris at the beginning of the First World War to study firstly at the École des Arts Decoratifs, and then at the École des Beaux Arts.
He settled permanently in Paris in 1922, and became a French citizen in 1948. He participated in numerous Group exhibitions in Paris from 1926, including the Salon d’ Automne, Salon de Mai, and the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. In 1946 he showed his paintings at the first Abstract Group exhibition held since the end of the Second World War at the prestigious Galerie Denise René in Paris.
By the 1950s Gérard Schneider became, with Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages, an innovator of Lyrical Abstraction. He thought “Painting should be looked at in the same way as music is listened to.” His paintings were a spontaneous and instinctual expression of the moment. During this period he also exhibited in New York at the highly innovative Kootz Gallery, between 1955 and 1960.
Throughout his working life Gérard Schneider exhibited throughout France and abroad, and received numerous prizes, and a major retrospective was held at the Salon d’Automne in 1979. He died in Paris in 1986.
Major public collections:
Brussels, Musée d’Art moderne
Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery
Kamakura (Japan), Museum of State
Milan, Museo d’Arte moderna
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center
Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Neuchatel (Switzerland), Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
New York, Museum of Modern Art
Paris, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
Paris, Musée national d’Art moderne Centre Georges-Pompidou
Rome, Galleria d’Arte moderna
Rio de Janeiro, Musée d’Art moderne
Turin, Galleria civica d’Arte moderna
Washington D.C., The Phillips Collection
Worchester Mass, Worchester Museum
Zurich, Kunsthaus
Major private collection:
Geneva, Fondation Gandur pour l’Art
Major exhibitions:
Advancing French Art, travelling exhibition in the United States: Louisville, Bloomington, San Francisco, Chicago and Whashington, 1951-52
Sao Paulo Biennale, 1961
Retrospective, travelling exhibition: Kunstverein, Düsseldorf / Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1962
International exhibition, traveling exhibition in Japan, 1965
Venice Biennale, Pavillon of France, 1966
Paintings in France 1900-1967, travelling exhibition in the United States: New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and in Canada, 1968
Retrospective, Galleria civica d’Arte moderna, Turin, 1970
Panorama de l’Art contemporain, traveling exhibition in Iran, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, 1971-72
Retrospective, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Neuchâtel, 1983
L’Envolée lyrique, Paris 1945-1956, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2006
Gérard Schneider, grands gestes pour un grand monde, Musée d’Art &
d’Histoire, Neuchâtel, 2011
Les Sujets de l’abstraction, Peinture non-figurative de la Seconde École de
Paris (1946-1962), Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Musée Rath, Geneva, 2011
Gérard Schneider. Rétrospective, Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, 2013