Daniel Dezeuze

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris maintains, through its history, a privileged link with the Supports/Surfaces group, which it presented for the first time under this name at the ARC in 1970. Among its founders, Daniel Dezeuze (born in 1942) holds a decisive place.

Son of painter Georges Dezeuze (1905-2004), he freely attended classes at the Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, where he met Arnal, Bioulès, Grand, Rouan, and Viallat. His stay in Mexico in 1964-65 profoundly influenced his painting, nourished by pre-Hispanic cultures.

In North America, he then discovered the New York School, from Pollock to Rothko. Settling in Paris in 1967, he developed with Saytour and Viallat the foundations of Supports/Surfaces, leading a radical reflection on the future of painting.

This questioning of the traditional structure of the painting led him to concentrate his work on the support itself. He then undertook a true “deconstruction” of the canvas conceived as an object, affirming the materialism of the works and the primacy of the creative process.

Dezeuze left the group in 1972 and pursued personal research focused on the construction of the painting, the fragility of materials, the economy of means, and continuous experimentation.

Twenty recent works now join the collections of the Musée d’Art moderne, an exceptional acquisition that allows tracing his journey since 1982. They bear witness to his taste for reuse (doors, panels, skis), assemblage, form-generating colour, and the importance of emptiness.

References to art history (Mondrian), the Middle Ages, Mesoamerican cultures, or calligraphy traverse and nourish all of his work over the last forty years.