Word: mathieu
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Paris Painter Georges Mathieu appears to be crazy like a fox-one with a particularly long and wavy brush. A slim, trim dandy of 34, he has made a good living as a pressagent. And by adroitly publicizing himself, Mathieu has recently become the reigning darling of advance-guard art, has no trouble selling (at prices ranging from $600 to $3,400) pictures that take only from a few minutes to a few hours to paint. Last week a new exhibition of Mathieu's paintings was on view at Manhattan's Kootz Gallery, and proved...
...Mathieu's own name for the school is "lyrical abstractionism." In London it is "action painting," in Manhattan "abstract expressionism." By whatever name, the school stands for huge canvases covered with fervent swirls and splashes of paint...
...ferocity is also part of Mathieu's obvious desire to overpower the viewer and compel his attention. Two smaller pictures-a snarl of black on a red canvas and a few black splashes on a white canvas-show that when the shouter lowers his voice, he also lowers his standards; they are simply chic. But as a whole the exhibition proves that Mathieu is as powerful an abstract expressionist as Manhattan's own Willem de Kooning...
Fame & Fortune. Now 33, Mathieu has already made his fame in Europe, sells everything he paints. Slim, dapper, cultivated, he occupies a town house furnished with fine Gothic furniture and Persian carpets, in the fashionable La Muette section of Paris. He whips out small paintings in as little as ten minutes, and even his huge pictures require no more than a couple of hours to paint. This, as Mathieu is frank to point out, leaves him "lots of time for other activi ties . . . I'm keenly interested in modern music, philosophy, mathematics, poetry, literature...
Like most painters of his school, Mathieu is his own worst advocate. He says he has "no interest in nature," and maintains that his art is what he calls "an orgasm of uncontrolled expression." But whether he chooses to admit the fact or not, Mathieu's paintings are as elaborately controlled as a professional golfer's game. Moreover they do reflect the real world around him, especially the technologically molded world of speed, smoke, glare, and vast perspectives...