Charles ESTIENNE (1908-1966) - Lot 253

Charles ESTIENNE (1908-1966) Surrealist-inspired poet and composer. P.a.s S.L.N.D, one page in 4 in brown ink on beige paper. Text of the song "C'est la vie" consisting of two quatrains followed by the refrain "C'est l'amour, c'est la vie". Above the text is the musical notation of the song in its mnemonic script, based on small vertical strokes. 27 x 20 cm Expert: Mario MORDENTE Provenance : - Loudmer sale. - French private collection Erotica Monsieur X Considered a major figure in the art of the 1950s and 1960s4, Charles Estienne was early influenced by the work of Paul Sérusier. Influenced by the thinking of Kandinsky, he became interested in the abstract painters of the New School of Paris, such as Serge Poliakoff and Charles Lapicque, when he arrived in Paris in 1945. In 1950, he published the manifesto L'art abstrait est-il un académisme (Is abstract art an academicism?), reacting against the proponents of a cold abstraction with codifying or even dogmatic aims, a position that was to lead him to promote lyrical abstraction from 1954 in resounding articles published in Combat-Art. André Breton rallied to this movement for a time, bringing certain lyrical abstractionists closer to Surrealism. The Paris gallery "À l'étoile scellée" subsequently exhibited painters close to Estienne and often introduced by Breton, including Jean Degottex, René Duvillier and Marcelle Loubchansky. In 1955, at the Musée pédagogique in Paris, Estienne presented Pérennité de l'art gaulois, an exhibition that heightened Breton's awareness of Celtic art. In 1960, he signed the Manifesto of 121, a declaration of the "right to insubordination" in the context of the Algerian war.