Marcelle LOUBCHANSKY (1917-1988)

Marcelle Loubchansky approached painting after the liberation in 1944 and she immediately joined, without passing by figurative painting, one of the movements of informal abstraction in the wake of Wols, Tobey and Mathieu. But she doesn’t seemed to have been asking the exact same questions as these others who was deeply concerned about speed, movement and tasks.

More intrigued by the dream, at the research of imperceptible worlds, Marcelle Loubchansky was never really a part of a group or artistic movement, even though she participated several times in group exhibitions, notably the ones organized by her lifelong friend Charles Estienne.

Marcelle Loubchansky was also the  first one to use the technique of oil diluted by benzine as a part of the essence of her work. A procedure that gave her works fluidity and a coloration that was exceptional. André Breton, in the preface of the exhibition at the Gallery Kléber in 1956, said “… No one knew how she liberated and made all these forms of the earth rise and “participating as a humidity and flame at the same time” which confirmed a new elaboration. The privilege that comes back in all its splendor, in our eyes, the changing and singing fringe by which a completed age anticipates the coming one… It is a breath of fresh air which, washed of its works, gives us the pure look of childhood, where the prestige of the aurora borealis combines with those of the color of time”.

Personal exhibitions:

1948 Gallery Breteau, Paris; 1951 Gallery de Beaune, Paris; 1953 Gallery Ex Libris, Bruxelles; 1956 Gallery Kléber, Paris, introduction of André Breton; Gallery d’Aujourd’hui, Bruxelles, préface de P. Janlet; 1957 Gallery Kléber, Paris, introduction of Renée Beslon; 1960 Gallery Kléber, Paris, introduction of Charles Estienne; 1963 Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, introduction of R. V. Gindertaël; 1965 Dix ans – 1955-1965, Gallery Jean Fournier, Paris, introduction of Geneviève Bonnefoi; Gallery Knoll International, Paris, presentation de J.F. Bonpaix; 1970 Gallery de Zodiaque, Genève, introduction of Maryse Haerdi; 1991 Gallery Carole Brimaud, Paris; 1992 Rétrospectives – 1950-1988, Abbaye de Beaulieu, Center of contemporary art, organised by Geneviève Bonnefoi; 1993 Hommage à Marcelle Loubchansky, 1917-1988 Mairie du VIe arrondissement, Paris; 2001 Gallery le Sphinx, Montauban; 2009 Les Moires de la mémoire, Gallery Carole Brimaud, Paris; Gallery Convergences, Paris; 2014 Cosmic spaces, Gallery 53, Paris

Public collections: C.E.T., Trappes; Peter Stuyvesant Collection; Foundation Arturo Schwarz, Milano;  Cantini Museum, Marseille; Museum of fine arts, Pau; Museum of fine arts, Nantes; Museum of fine arts, Bruxelles; Museum of Moderne Art of Paris; Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Funds National Contemporary Art, Paris; Regional Funds  of Contemporary Art, Bretagne; Abbaye de Beaulieu, Center of contemporary art, C.N.M.H.S.