“It is by capturing a frozen instant of the future that one makes an art that has importance.”
—Jean Fautrier An alluring example of Fautrier’s early nudes prefiguring his infamous période noir, Petit nu presents the viewer with a provocative rendering of the human form. The composition explores the tradition of the nude, revitalised through the artist’s distinctive stylistic approach and tone. Fautrier constructs the human form through expressive strokes of brown, black, and flesh tones, as well as sharp white outlines, creating a harsh and textured surface. Light softly illuminates the thighs, breast, and arms, as the rest of the body recedes into the dark background. Although the figure is depicted frontally, their face remains shielded from the viewer and seems to refuse their gaze, almost as if to protect the vulnerability of their nude body. The resulting composition is striking as it both intrigues the viewer through its complex visual elements yet refuses them through the unavailability of the subject.
Fautrier began depicting nudes in 1925 inspired by his partner Andrée Pierson; through them he explored the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, as well as surface tension and texture, elements that would define the Art Informel style of his later career. Petit nu demonstrates Fautrier’s early development of this visual language, with its distortion of traditional representations of the human figure and of beauty, he forges a composition that dwells between the fragile, the beautiful, and the raw.
