THE YEARS OF STUDIES OF THE PAINTER JEAN MIOTTE

Jean Miotte was born in Paris on September 8th, 1926 and spent his youth in Occupied Paris: he was eighteen years old at the end of the war. “It was in this context of upheaval and planetary ideological turmoil that his desire for other values, other spiritual commitments was exacerbated. His hostility towards all forms of regimentation, group effects, dates from this time. At the age of nineteen, he had decided, his path would be solitary” wrote Serge Lenczner.

After studying mathematics, Jean Miotte completed his military service. The artist explained: “I was struck by the ugliness of the facilities and the wall decorations in the surrounding area, and I swore to myself from the moment I saw them that I would transform them.” As such, he began painting the walls in the break rooms – “With Pop Art before its time” noted Miotte, and “Beautiful girls on beaches to entertain the soldiers…” – as well as sets for the barracks theatre. Stricken with tuberculosis, Miotte’s military service was cut short and he was hospitalized for several months, during which time he practised painting and drawing. Once he had recovered, he continued his artistic endeavours in Paris – which was brimming with activity – and attended a number of free art schools in Montparnasse, such as the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the studios of Othon Friesz and Ossip Zadkine, among others. At this time, Miotte painted nude models as well as imaginary compositions. He was very interested in Jacques Villon, Georges Rouault and Henri Matisse.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DANCE TO JEAN MIOTTE’S ART

In 1948, Miotte followed his Russian friends to London where the Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil were performing. It was with great joy that he discovered the world of dance. The artist explained: “I savoured the first wonders and discoveries of the choreographic world, the arabesques, the theatrical organisation of lines, of rhythm…” Miotte became friends with some of the key figures in dance, including the dancers Zizi Jeanmaire, Wladimir Skouratoff and Rosella Hightower, who even asked him to design sets for her choreographic works. Miotte thus became involved with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas – whose members included Rosella Hightower and Wladimir Skouratoff – which was based in Monte Carlo. Towards the end of the 1940s, Miotte often depicted dancers in his work. After that, Miotte’s painting became non-figurative, drawing on dramatic play and performance. Movement became fundamental to his work. Jean-Clarence Lambert described his work as a form of “choreographic abstraction”. Miotte wanted to achieve a fusion of the visual and performing arts. “I have a passion for dance and choreography…” he confided, “I dream of a magnificent synthesis of painting, music and choreography.” Throughout his career, Jean Miotte created a number of stage sets and costumes. In 1994, his spectacular five-metre canvas Sud (South) entered the collection of the Opéra Bastille, where it is on display today.

JEAN MIOTTE’S EARLY SUCCESSES

Jean Miotte travelled to Italy and discovered Quattrocento art. He also met the artists Piero Dorazio, Lorenzo Guerrini and Achille Perilli. On returning to Paris, Jean Miotte was influenced by the paintings of Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger.

Miotte painted his first abstract painting in 1950. He was living and working in Meudon, where he made friends with the artists Jean Arp and Gino Severini – two key figures, one in the world of abstract art, the other in terms of the importance of movement. Jean Miotte also developed a close relationship with Sam Francis, whom he met in 1952 and visited in his studio in Ville-d’Avray. In 1953, Jean Cassou bought a painting by Jean Miotte for the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. In the same year, Miotte had his first exhibition at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, an event in which he would participate regularly from then on. The same year, the art critic Michel Seuphor contacted him for his publication Dictionnaire de l’art abstrait which was published in 1957. Miotte’s painting is described in it as: “highly coloured compositions with clearly articulated design that have wall power.” Jean Miotte is a personal work, between Lyrical Abstraction, Informal Art and Tachisme. “The names of the artists who, with their lyricism, are an exception to the general rule of coldness… Jean Miotte, by whom bright and airy painting transmits an undeniable emotion,” wrote the art critic Alain Jouffroy. Jean Miotte’s paintings were created with an immediate gesture, a dazzling energy. “Movement is my life” he recalled. In this, he can be compared to Jackson Pollock.

Jean Miotte never prepared his work with sketches. This differentiated him from Hans Hartung for example. The American art critic Harold Rosenberg appreciated this practice especially: “the most important thing in art is freshness”. This free and instinctive form of painting was also influenced by Surrealism. The spirit was liberated of all constraints of reflection: “it is the intuition that counts above all when a work is born”. Jean Miotte evoked his work as the “result of internal conflicts, my painting is a projection; a succession of acute moments where creation happens in full spiritual tension. Painting is not a speculation of the mind or the intellect, it is a gesture that is carried within.” Jean Miotte met Roberto Roberto Matta who told him: “Surrealism is for me a battle. (…) You, too, you’re a fighter, you’re like me, your paintings aren’t abstract.”

The influence of Cubism is also present. Just as his predecessors decomposed to recompose, Miotte “unmakes”. According to Karl Ruhrberg, with Jean Miotte, it is “the orchestration of a world that explodes”. He also underlined Jean Miotte’s strong connection to his northern origins, especially Frans Hals, “who, like him, allied spontaneous painting and harmony between impulse and balance.”

In 1954, Jean Miotte moved his studio to the townhouse of the sculptor Prince Youriévitch in Boulogne, where the artists Jacques Lanzman and Serge Rezvani were also living. The following year, the painter Henri Goetz brought his pupils to visit this studio. In 1957, Jean Miotte participated in the exhibition 50 Ans d’Art Abstrait at the Galerie Creuse in Paris. A solo exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie Lucien Durand in the same city. From 1958, Jean Miotte was represented in Europe by the dealer Jacques Dubourg. That year, Jean Miotte met the painters André Lanskoy, Serge Poliakoff and Pierre Dmitrienko.

In 1957, Jean Miotte participated in the exhibition 50 Ans d’Art Abstrait at the Galerie Creuse in Paris. A solo exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie Lucien Durand in the same city. From 1958, Jean Miotte was represented in Europe by the dealer Jacques Dubourg. That year, Jean Miotte met the painters André Lanskoy, Serge Poliakoff and Pierre Dmitrienko.

Jean Miotte became successful in Germany where ten exhibitions were devoted to his work during the 1950s, for example at the Kunsthalle of Recklinghausen in 1958. He was also included in a group exhibition of fifteen painters at the Cologne Kunstverein. In 1960, the Ludwig Museum of Cologne acquired a work by Jean Miotte.

THE PAINTER JEAN MIOTTE’S FIRST TRIP TO THE USA

Jean Miotte exhibited at the first Paris Biennale in 1959 in the “Section Informels” with Raymond Hains, LeRoy Neiman, Peter Foldes and André Favory. The following year, two paintings by Jean Miotte were included in the inaugural exhibition of the Galerie Karl Flinker in Paris. Paintings by him were also included in the inaugural exhibition of the Galerie Iris Clert. In 1961, Jean Miotte participated with Sam Francis, Georges Mathieu and Jean-Paul Riopelle in the group exhibitions of the Swenska-Franska Gallery in Stockholm and the Galerie Bonnier in Lausanne. That year, he was awarded the Ford Foundation Prize and was invited to spend six months in the USA. The following year, a solo show of his work was organized by the Iolas Gallery in New York. Jean Miotte met the American artists Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Chaïm Jacob Lipchitz and Alexander Calder. He traveled around the USA and gave a lecture at Colorado Spring University.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR THE PAINTER JEAN MIOTTE

In 1963, a Jean Miotte retrospective was organized by the Stedelijk Museum of Schiedam and it then transferred to the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands. Jean Miotte participated the same year in the group exhibition Art Contemporain at the Grand Palais in Paris. In February 1964, the Portuguese art historian José-Augusto França wrote about Jean Miotte’s painting in the magazine Costruire: “A gestural painter in the French spirit, Miotte expresses himself in the constructive despite the impression of immediate vehemence that emanates from his paintings:his art goes beyond the post-war aesthetic, standing out in a more modern way by a conscience of the independence of the idea of creating.” During the 1960s, many exhibitions of Jean Miotte’s work were organized in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and in Belgium. At that time, he worked in the south of France, at Pignans. In 1967, he was again included in an exhibition at the Schiedam Stedelijk Museum, the group show Huit peintres de Paris, along with Chafik Abboud, Olivier Debré, Karskaya, Jean Messagier, Carl Moser, Louis Nalard and Paul Rebeyrolle.

In 1970, Jean Miotte became a member of the Comité des Réalités Nouvelles. He exhibited forty paintings at the Fondation Prouvost at Marcq-en-Baroeul. In 1971, Jean Miotte started using hessian bare canvas as an element in his compositions. The following year, he again spent time in the USA, this time in New York and Washington. Forty-six of his canvases were exhibited at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. Jean Miotte moved his studio to Hamburg in Germany. In 1975, a monograph on Jean Miotte was published, containing a text by the dealer Castor Seibel: “no imitation, no reproduction, but the internal event finds its expression in the colors and a gestural dynamic… Miotte’s painting is a place where the contradictions of our age are no longer expressed in a dualist way… In this sense, J.M. is an important creator of new forms.”

The following year, Jean Miotte experimented with paper as a support and made eighty gouaches as well as collages of brown paper and newspaper. One of his works was acquired by the Museum of Maassluis in the Netherlands. He exhibited in Padua alongside Enrico Baj, Alexander Calder and Karel Appel. Jean Miotte moved his studio to Vitry-sur-Seine. He exhibited at the Malines cultural center in Belgium at the group show Kunst in Europa 1920-1960 which brought together the big names in contemporary art of the time.

JEAN MIOTTE ’S TRAVELS IN ASIA

In May 1980, Jean Miotte exhibited fifty works in Beijing at the French cultural center. He was the first western painter to be invited to exhibit his work in Beijing after Mao’s death. Jean Miotte took this opportunity to travel around China. In 1982, he exhibited sixty paintings at the Hong Kong Art Center and then at the French-Japanese Institute of Tokyo. The following year, Jean Miotte exhibited at the Singapore National Museum and at the National Museum of History of Taipei. In 1984, he was exhibited at the Striped House Museum of Tokyo.

The Guggenheim Museum acquired two works on paper by Jean Miotte in 1987. In 1991, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris exhibited the prints commissioned by Danielle Mitterrand for her album Mémoire de la liberté. Fifty-five artists were involved in this project including Jean Miotte, Roy Lichtenstein, Antoni Tapies, Sam Francis and Robert Rauschenberg. The following year, a Jean Miotte retrospective was organized at the Palais des Arts de Toulouse.

The Jean Miotte Foundation was opened in New York in 2002 with a permanent collection of his works. It is nowadays based in Fribourg (Switzerland). Jean Miotte died on March 1st, 2016 at the age of 89.

© Galerie Diane de Polignac / Mathilde Gubanski