Rating and value of works, paintings, drawings by George Mathieu

French painter George Mathieu (1921-2012) is considered the pioneer of lyrical abstraction.

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Artist's rating and value

Considered the leader of lyrical abstraction, Georges Mathieu exhibited widely during his lifetime. As a result, he already enjoyed a certain notoriety and presence on the art market.

Today, his value continues to rise, and the artist has established himself as a sure bet on the art market.

A work by Mathieu can fetch millions of euros at auction, as demonstrated by his painting Tuz Gölü, which sold for €1,666,170 at Sotheby's in 2021.

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

Artist's style and technique

This aspect of Georges Mathieu's work is rarely discussed. For while we readily associate his work with the dazzle of gesture and the explosion of color, we sometimes forget that his art is based on a skilfully mastered technique.

Mathieu, a major figure in lyrical abstraction, rejected the traditional constraints of painting in favor of an almost musical spontaneity. But this spontaneity is not an abandonment to chance: it requires absolute control of movement and a perfect knowledge of materials.

Painting on the ground or on vast vertical formats implied an amplified, rapid gesture, where each stroke and splash found its place in a carefully orchestrated balance. 

Mathieu's technique goes beyond traditional tools. The use of large brushes, tubes of paint pressed directly onto the canvas, and the adoption of new supports reflect a desire to break down conventional frameworks.

The artist also relies on a vibrant palette, where contrasts of vivid and metallic colors contribute to an almost theatrical visual drama. It's this marriage of raw energy and meticulous calculation that lends her compositions a unique intensity, halfway between impulse and reflection.

In so doing, Mathieu redefines not only the pictorial gesture, but the very place of the artist in relation to his work, becoming both creator and actor in an art in perpetual motion.

Georges Matthieu, master of lyrical abstraction

Georges Mathieu has often been presented as a paradoxical figure: both provocateur and theorist, he combined a rebellious spirit with a rigorous quest for aesthetics.

Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1921, he spent his childhood in a changing France, marked by the inter-war years.

Yet it was at university, not in the workshops, that his career first took shape: with a degree in English literature, he began his career as a teacher and translator, an intellectual anchorage that would never leave his work. 

It wasn't until the late 1940s that he turned fully to painting, driven by a fascination for pure abstraction and the potential of gesture. Resolutely independent, he rejected the dogmas of geometric abstraction in favor of lyrical freedom.

A visionary, from 1947 he organized manifesto exhibitions, in which he defended an immediate, intuitive style of painting, which he opposed to the constraints of reason. Mathieu's boundless energy was not confined to the studio: he wrote, theorized and traveled.

An ambassador of reinvented French art, he has made his mark on the international scene while cultivating a certain eccentricity, as in his spectacular performances where he paints in public.

Until his death in 2012, he remains a fascinating, iconoclastic figure whose work and ideas continue to fuel artistic debate.

Georges Mathieu's stylistic influences

It could be said that Georges Mathieu's influences lie at the crossroads of the great aesthetic ruptures of the twentieth century, while at the same time brilliantly freeing himself from them.

If American Abstract Expressionism is often evoked as an inevitable parallel, with Pollock or Rauschenberg as major figures, Mathieu himself claims a lineage far more rooted in European history.

The baroque energy of Rubens and the dramatic élans of Delacroix find an obvious resonance in his work, reinterpreted in a gestural language where technical virtuosity vies with emotional intensity. 

Moreover, his compositions seem to dialogue with the calligraphic aesthetics of the Orient, borrowing from Japanese and Chinese writing that subtle blend of discipline and instinctive impulse.

Mathieu also admired the boldness of the Italian Futurists, their exaltation of movement and speed, expressed in his own canvases by broken lines and frenetic rhythms. Yet his work is rooted in a conscious rejection of narrative or figurative structures.

With his immediate, almost performative approach to the pictorial gesture, he forges a style that transcends these references, asserting a resolutely personal modernity rooted in the immediacy of the creative act.

Georges Mathieu's place in lyrical abstraction

Georges Mathieu's place within lyrical abstraction has rarely been questioned, so much so that he seems to be both its initiator and its most striking symbol.

Whereas geometric abstraction favored the rigor of form and a certain intellectualization of the creative process, Mathieu takes a diametrically opposed path, exalting pure emotion and the spontaneity of gesture.

He imposes a visual vocabulary in which color and line spring forth with an almost anarchic energy, capturing the moment with a rare intensity.

This gestural lyricism, which he sets up as a manifesto, makes him a figurehead, but also an exception, insofar as his approach goes beyond the very framework of this movement.  

While Mathieu claims a filiation with the great movements of European art, his influence quickly transcends borders, finding a particular echo in an era thirsting for renewal and formal freedom - forging an artistic filiation with artists such as Olivier Debré.

Where some saw lyrical abstraction as a simple counterpoint to American abstract expressionism, Mathieu inscribed his own identity, rooted in flamboyant humanism.

His painting was not just a response to the artistic tensions of his time, but an attempt to reconcile the chaos of the world with the beauty of the unexpected, a glimmer of eternity plucked from the tumult.

Focus on La Bataille des Bouvines, 1954

La Bataille de Bouvines, a monumental composition by Georges Mathieu in 1954, cannot be overlooked.

With its imposing dimensions and exaggerated theatricality, this work perfectly illustrates the painter's ambition to revive the great historical frescoes, while transposing them into the realm of abstraction.

Here, the subject - the famous medieval battle that consecrated Philip Augustus - disappears beneath an explosion of lines and colors, as if the artist had wanted to translate the dramatic intensity of the event through the sheer force of gesture. 

The canvas is crisscrossed by frenzied, incisive strokes that tear across the surface, while chromatic splashes - vivid reds, deep blues, dazzling golds - evoke both the armor of knights and the violence of battle.

It's not a question of representing, but of evoking: Mathieu orchestrates a veritable pictorial symphony here, where each brushstroke seems like a note.

The artist's claim to speed of execution lends the work a raw, almost electric energy, where emotion takes precedence over narrative. 

This work, while asserting the autonomy of abstraction, is part of a paradoxical dialogue with tradition: it testifies to the will to

Mathieu to make painting a total theater, capable of expressing the heroism, grandeur and tragedy of human history.

Georges Mathieu's imprint on his period

The way in which Georges Mathieu turned the conventions of his time on their head has rarely been considered.

His works, far from conventional formats, stand out for their monumentality and dazzling execution, reinventing the very act of painting.

At a time when abstract art was dominated by theoretical reflection, he opposes a raw, immediate gesturality, like a living manifesto.

This exaltation of gesture was not just a technique, but a real statement, an opposition to the dominant influences from across the Atlantic, notably Abstract Expressionism.

What sets Mathieu apart is his ability to reconcile total freedom with a form of artistic heroism. His public performances, in which he would paint in front of an audience, gave the creative act an unprecedented theatrical, almost liturgical dimension.

It wasn't just a question of producing images, but of embodying an idea: that of a vibrant European art, capable of competing with international schools and reviving an ancestral gestural tradition, sometimes evoking oriental calligraphy.

Every movement, every burst of color became an affirmation, a challenge to the rigid frameworks of academicism.

This stance left its mark on a generation of artists and intellectuals in search of their bearings in a world turned upside down by modernity.

Mathieu's audacity lay as much in the spontaneity of his creations as in their ambition to push back the boundaries of European art, reintegrating it into a universal history.

His imprint, beyond his canvases, can be seen in this desire to elevate art to the level of ritual, a total experience where immediacy and intuition surpass any method, thus inscribing his gesture in a quest for transcendence.

His signature

Although there are variations, here is a first example of its signature:

Our team will be happy to help you identify your artwork. 

Appraising your property

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A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you to provide an estimate of the market value of your work.

If you are considering selling your work, our specialists will also guide you through the various alternatives available to obtain the best possible price, taking into account market trends and the specific features of each work.