Gérard Schneider

Pioneer of Lyrical Abstraction, along Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages, Gérard Schneider is a leading figure of this new, utterly free, gestural abstraction, which emerges in Post-War Paris.

Opus 343 – 1947

Oil on plywood
50 x 61 cm / 19.6 x 24 in.
Signed and dated lower right: “Schneider – 47”
Titled on the reverse

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Opus 388 – 1948

Oil on isorel board
Signed and dated lower right “Schneider-48“

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Opus 500 – c. 1951

Oil on canvas
51 x 60 cm / 20 x 23,6 in.
Signed lower right “Schneider”
Titled on reverse

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Untitled – 1968

Oil and sand on canvas
97 x 130 cm / 38.1 x 51.1 in.
Signed and dated “Schneider 68” lower right

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Opus 14 K – 1971

Acrylic on canvas
114 x 146 cm / 44.8 x 57.4 in.
Signed and dated “Schneider 1971“ lower right

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Untitled – 1976

Acrylic on canvas
65 x 81 cm / 25.5 x 31.8 in.
Signed and dated “Schneider-76“ lower right

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

Opus 31 M – 1977

Acrylic on canvas
150 x 220 cm / 59 x 86.6 in.
Signed and dated lower right: “Schneider.77”
Titled on the reverse on the canvas

Letter of inclusion in Gérard Schneider’s (1896-1986) Catalogue raisonné

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
Lyrisme(s)
SOLO SHOW
OCTOBER 17 – NOVEMBER 30, 2022

THE 1940s
An abstract renaissance inspired by surrealist practices
GROUP SHOW
FEBRUARY 21 – APRIL 30, 2022

LES ANNÉES 1970 – 1980
L’EXPLOSION DE LA COULEUR
GROUP SHOW
SEPTEMBER, 2021

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
The emergence of gesture
Artworks on paper 1944-1959
SOLO SHOW
NOVEMBER 5 – DECEMBER 18, 2020

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
Gesture and colour
Works on paper from the 1960s
SOLO SHOW
JUNE 18 – JULY 24, 2020

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER 
1945-1955
De l’abstraction au lyrisme
SOLO SHOW
SEPTEMBER 13 – OCTOBER 15, 2017

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
SOLO SHOW
JUNE 2 – JULY 31, 2014

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
SOLO SHOW
MAY 22 MAI – JULY 30, 2013

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
Lyrisme(s)

Catalog 72 pages – Texts by Laurence Schneider, Christian Demare & Astrid de Monteverde

THE 1940s
An abstract renaissance inspired by surrealist practices

Digital publication – Text by Mathilde Gubanski

LES ANNÉES 1970 – 1980
L’EXPLOSION DE LA COULEUR

Digital publication – Text by Mathilde Gubanski

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
The emergence of gesture
Artworks on paper 1944-19599

Digital publication – Text by Christian Demare

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER
Gesture and colour
Works on paper from the 1960s

Digital publication – Text by Astrid de Monteverde & Christian Demare

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER 
1945-1955
De l’abstraction au lyrisme

Published by the Galerie Diane de Polignac
Exhibition Catalog
French & English – 86 pages – sept. 2017

GÉRARD SCHNEIDER

Published by the Galerie Diane de Polignac
Exhibition Catalog
French & English – 96 pages – june 2014

LYRICAL ABSTRACTION
PARIS 1945-1995

Published by the Galerie Diane de Polignac and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts
Exhibition Catalog
English – 21 pages – nov. 2014

Video of the exhibition “GÉRARD SCHNEIDER Lyrisme(s)”,
from October 17 to Novembre 30, 2022.

Virtual visit of the exhibition “GÉRARD SCHNEIDER THE EMERGENCE OF GESTURE”,
from November 5 to December 18, 2020.

Virtual visit of the exhibition “GÉRARD SCHNEIDER GESTURE AND COLOR”,
from June 18 to July 24, 2020.

Documentary
About Gérard Schneider’s work and life (1896-1986) – 12 min

An article on Gérard Schneider, June 2022.
Figaro / Culture

“FREE, VIVID AND EXPRESSIVE Gérard Schneider, the large works on paper (1983–1985)”, an analysis by Mathilde Gubanski

“Gérard Schneider Untitled – 1968”, an analysis by Astrid de Monteverde

“Gérard Schneider The emergence of gesture”, an analysis by Christian Demare and Astrid de Monteverde

“Gérard Schneider From abstraction to lyricism 1945-1955”, an analysis by Astrid de Monteverde

Gérard Schneider & the years of study (1916-1937)                 

Gérard Schneider was born in Sainte-Croix in Switzerland in 1896. He spent his childhood in Neuchâtel where his father was a cabinetmaker and antique dealer.

At the age of 20, he went to Paris to study at the École nationale des arts décoratifs, and then in 1918 entered the studio of Fernand Cormon at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Cormon had also taught Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In 1922, Gérard Schneider settled permanently in Paris. The 1920s and 1930s were marked by a long period during which he learned different techniques and the history of painting.

In 1926, Gérard Schneider’s exhibition took place for the first time at the Salon d’Automne. The work he showed, L’Allée hippique (Horse Pathway), attracted attention. He also frequented musical circles in Paris. He exhibited five paintings, including Figures dans un jardin (Figures in a Garden) at the Salon des Surindépendants of 1936, which were appreciated by the critic of La Revue Moderne: “a style, figures of such agility that the expression of movement seems to have been included in the rapid technique”.

He also discovered the artistic movements of the century of upheavals and tragedies during this period.

In the mid-1930s, the painter Gérard Schneider assimilated the revolution initiated by Kandinsky’s abstraction, while also exploring the new horizons introduced by Surrealism. He no longer painted from reality. His palette darkened, black now occupied an important position and formed structures. He wrote poems and frequented the Surrealists: Luis Fernandez, Oscar Dominguez, Paul Éluard and Georges Hugnet.

Gérard Schneider towards abstraction (1938-1949)

From 1938, the titles of Gérard Schneider’s paintings no longer referred to reality: the three sent to the Salon des Surindépendants were called Composition. In 1939, he met Picasso. Around 1944, his painting definitively abandoned all references to reality.

In 1945, the Musée National d’Art Moderne bought one of Gérard Schneider’s paintings (Composition, 1944).

In the effervescence of the immediate post-war period, Gérard Schneider’s art played a pioneering role in the birth of a new form of abstraction. In Paris, the painter Gérard Schneider and other precursors proposed a return to the radicality of abstraction, a form of abstraction that no longer had any connection with the real and perceptible world and would become a landmark, it matched the aesthetic imperatives of this transitional period: it was called Lyrical Abstraction.

Gérard Schneider & the “Years of Glory” (1950-1961)

Alongside artists such as Jean-Michel Atlan, André Lanskoy, Georges Mathieu and especially Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages with whom he formed sincere friendships, Gérard Schneider very quickly saw his work acquire an international dimension. From the mid-1940s, major exhibitions grouping the main members of lyrical abstraction were organized in Paris, especially at the galleries of Lydia Conti and Denise René.

Abroad, at major travelling exhibitions, the public discovered this vital creative momentum: around Germany from the late 1940s: this was the exhibition Wanderausstellung Französischer Abstrakter Malerei (Travelling exhibition of French abstract paintings) which circulated throughout West Germany between 1948 and 1949. Schneider’s works were exhibited immediately afterwards in the USA: at the Betty Parsons Gallery (in 1949 and 1951) and in the major travelling exhibition Advancing French Art that was shown all over the country, from Chicago to San Francisco.

Between 1955 and 1961, the Samuel Kootz Gallery in New York was his exclusive dealer in the USA and his representative there. The painter Gérard Schneider joined his friend Pierre Soulages in this prestigious gallery.

The Phillips Gallery of Washington bought Opus 445 of 1950 and New York’s MoMA bought Opus 95 B of 1955.

In 1956, Gérard Schneider married for the second time, his wife was Loïs Frederick a young American woman who had come to Paris to study art on a Fulbright scholarship, whom he met through Marcel Brion. Around the same time, Schneider met Eugène Ionesco.

Exhibitions were held successively around the world.

From the early 1950s, Gérard Schneider’s works were exhibited in Europe: for example, in Brussels where there was a first retrospective in 1953, then a second one in 1962 in association with the Düsseldorf Kunstverein. He also participated in the first two editions of Documenta in Kassel in 1955 and 1959.

Gérard Schneider exhibited three times at the Venice Biennale, in 1948, 1954 and 1966.

In 1957, he won the award Prix Lissone.

His works also travelled regularly, to Japan from 1950 until the early 1970s, especially for the International Exposition of Art. In addition, for the International Art Exhibition in Tokyo in 1959, he was awarded the prize of the Governor of Tokyo.

The painter Gérard Schneider also showed several times at the São Paulo Biennale: in 1951, 1953 and 1961. During the 1961 edition, Jean Cassou, chief curator of the Musée National d’Art Moderne of Paris, asked Schneider to create four canvas paintings 2 x 3 m for a group of ten large format works that were exhibited.

Gérard Schneider & the “Years of Enlightenment” (1962-1972)

During the 1960s, he maintained a close connection with the Milan-based dealer, Bruno Lorenzelli who held many exhibitions of his work around Italy. This decade of change saw Gérard Schneider’s painting acquiring more colour, becoming freer while the gesture acquired a definitively calligraphic dimension.

Yet again, Gérard Schneider’s work evolved and echoed the aesthetic aspirations of his time as much as a complex interior process that had begun many years earlier. A synthesis of the notions of form, colour and space.

At the 1966 Venice Biennale, an entire room of the French Pavilion was devoted to his work.
Similarly, a major retrospective was held of his work in Turin in 1970 where about a hundred paintings were exhibited at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna. This was a great success, and then the exhibition continued at the “Terre des Hommes” Pavilion in Montreal.

Gérard Schneider : maturity and the large works on paper (1973-1986)

At over 70, Gérard Schneider’s art continued its effervescence. The fire was still as intense. The volcanic eruption of colour more fervent than ever, as if his work was destined never to be extinguished.

Exhibitions of the painter Gérard Schneider continued at the same pace, such as those held by the Galerie Beaubourg in Paris.
This fire, this energy, required a speed of execution that only paper seemed to allow. At the start of the 1980s, he turned towards this support almost exclusively. This is how, in the intimacy of his studio, large and luminous compositions full of colour were born, enflamed, the unreal beauty of which continue to fascinate.

The painter Gérard Schneider left this world on July 8^th 1986 at the age of 90 and bequeathed us an oeuvre that was both simultaneously unfathomable in its aesthetic complexity and yet so close, so human and so sensitive.

In 1998, Michel Ragon published a major monograph on his work.

In 2022, the Galerie Diane de Polignac will publish the Catalogue Raisonné of Gérard Schneider’s paintings.

© Diane de Polignac Gallery / Astrid de Monteverde
Translation: Jane Mac Avock

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