Michel Seuphor: Artist

Michel Seuphor was designer, draughtsman, painter. Explore interesting quotes on artist.

Michel Seuphor: 18 quotes0 likes

“As for myself, I confess to a preference for clear-cut situations, for radical and even extreme positions. But I also feel a secret and very strong attraction to ambiguous situations… for example, that hovering moment when it is no longer day and not yet night, the shades of emotion between indifference and friendship… (they) are so fascinating because they are so indefinable. That which is pure transition, is all the more appealing to the mind because of its elusiveness. It is the same in the cases of Mondrian, Kandinsky and the Cubists: abstraction and figuration have a common frontier in their work that is so tenuous that we often do not know which side we are on. It is this ambiguity that imports a rare poetic charm to their paintings. Artists like Klee, Miro and Dubuffet have also pitched their tents on this borderline and constantly travel from one side tot the other.”

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), pp. 43/44: (1962)

“For if art, like religion, belongs to no country, it is perhaps itself the only country and the only true religion. Only those hear its call who have that siren’s song within them. The inner riches of the eyes bring out the secret virtues of the work, and little by little they begin to speak… Every artist, every work of every artist, establishes, in his or its own absolutely inaccessible way, this contact of the spirit with the spirit. Provided of course, that the viewer is in 'a state of grace.”

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), p. 104

“The 'Cercle et Carré' group owes its existence to my encounter with the Uruguayan painter Torrès-Gracia in 1929… However difficult our relationship, his obstinacy matching my patience, this unholy team of fire and water was bound to produce something. Towards the end of the year, after consulting sundry artists, including Arp, Mondrian, and Van Doesburg, we drew up the program for a new group and launched a magazine which was be called 'Cercle et Carré.”

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), pp. 97-98:

“In 1936, when the last issue of 'Abstraction-Création' appeared, Europe was in a deep slump. Hitlerism was rampant in Germany and many artists had already fled there… There were evil portents on the horizon; night was about to descend over Europe. It was at that moment that America took up the case of abstract art. The association of 'American Abstract Artists' was founded that year, and it was also in 1936 that the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York… At about this time a flood of refugees – artists, intellectuals, and men of science – began to pour into the United States.”

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), p. 103