Would he have waited to reach the fateful cape of the oak wedding before dying peacefully ? The news has in any case upset the art world on Wednesday. While he would have celebrated his 103 years next December, the immense painter Pierre Soulages died in Nîmes surrounded by his relatives.
“This is sad news, I just hung up with his widow, Colette Soulages“, explained his friend Alfred Pacquement, director of the museum that bears his name in Rodez, his hometown. A widow who will now have to live without the one she married on October 24, 1942, exactly eighty years agoin the middle of the World War, while both were studying art in Montpellier.
A love story always linked to painting, since until the end of his life, the artist never ceased to be active in the middle of painting. Moreover, he was one of the greatest names in art still alive, and had reached the very select club of artists selling paintings for more than 10 million euros.
And the museums were not mistaken: almost three years ago, on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, the painter had been honored with an exhibition at the Louvre, thus becoming one of only three living artists to have obtained his retrospective one day (along with Chagall and Picasso). Ten years earlier, in 2009, it was thehe George Pompidou museum which offered this lover of abstract art an exhibition in his name.
Today, more than 500 works by this great name in abstract art are located in the museum that bears his name and can be found in Rodez. At its opening in 2014, the artist had indeed made two massive donations of his paintings, which he completed in 2021. During the inauguration, François Hollande had notably made the trip and paid tribute to him in a very touching in front of one of his large paintings.
“Pierre Soulages, you are – I know that I am going to offend your modesty – the most exceptional painter alive today.“, had declared the president. “Rodez, you were born there, it was yesterday, 94 years ago (…) Rodez, you give him the most beautiful gift with your works, your membership (in the Soulages museum project, long rejected, editor’s note) as well as that of Colette, because you are always two to decide“His widow, precisely, will now be able to take care of the museum, although the shock must have been harsh.