Collette Brunschwig (b. 1927, Le Havre, FR; d. 2025)

Colette Brunschwig belonged to a generation of french female painters who were active in the post-WWII Parisian art scene, and counted among friends contemporaries like Yves Klein and Paul Celan. As Pierette Bloch, she studied with André Lhote in the late 40’s, who opened her eyes to the issues of abstraction.

At the time, Brunschwig was fascinated by the work of the painter Claude Monet, to whom she later devoted an essay celebrating the “slow meltdown of the form,” which reached its paroxysm with the Nymphéas. His painting, in which “the top and the bottom, the right and the left are oriented, meet and get lost,” inspired Brunschwig to create works that were devoid of horizons but not of depth, pure abysses of darkness and light. Different generations of Parisian galleries have shown her work: in the 1970s, the galleries Nane Stern and La Roue, in the 1980s and 1990s, Bernard Bouche, Clivages and Jaquester, and in the 2000s and 2010s, Convergences and Jocelyn Wolff. In 2020, she took part in the group exhibition Femmes années 50. Au fil de l’abstraction, peinture et sculpture at the Soulages Museum in Rodez.

colette-brunschwig.com

CV

Selected Exhibitions

Collette Brunschwig: La Roue Revisited

OSMOS Address, New York, NY

December 13 – February 9, 2017

Selected Press

Collette Brunschwig | Artforum, 2016