Simon HANTAÏ 1922-2008

Simon Hantaï, born in Bia, Hungary, on December 7, 1922, is an abstract painter influenced by the European avant-garde.
After studying at the Budapest School of Fine Arts, he moved to France in 1948.
Influenced by surrealism and American abstract expressionism, he developed the method of folding in the
1960s.
This technique consists of folding , knotting and crumpling the canvas before applying the paint, creating
unpredictable patterns.
Hantaï retired from the art world in the 1980s until hisdeath in 2008, but his influence continues, notably with a great retrospective at the Musée National d'Art Moderne-Centre Pompidou in 2013.