For lack of funds he was restricted to working on paper and in a small room. In 1949, for his first show, he painted some canvases too. These already included the strong, almost architectural brush strokes and the drama of dark against light that was to become his hallmark and form the basis of his subsequent research. The relationships were uncertain as yet; he worked more firmly on paper, using charcoal and at times walnut stain. Soon, in a larger studio, he developed his mature image and built his reputation. Working with a broad brush over a light ground he constructed clusters of mostly vertical and horizontal bands that were dark – black or brown – and resemble massive scaffolding. It is his manipulation of light and darkness in these paintings that strikes one first; the light a pre-existing situation, the dark elements the result of man’s action (and here, of painting). Light emanates from the surfaces of his paintings while also being held captive within the dark and sombre colours he most often uses. The positive character of his paintings, speaking of strength rather than violence, made him stand out amid the generally more distressed art of Europe.

    It is striking that Soulages’ next exhibitions were abroad, in Copenhagen, Munich, New York, Chicago and London, before a Paris dealer started to show his work from 1956. In 1955 a New York dealer had enrolled and exhibited him, and for the next ten years his work was to be seen more often in New York than in France, while other major centres, in Germany as well as the USA took their lead from New York. 1960–66 saw Soulages retrospectives touring the Continent and North America; only in 1967 did Paris present one, at the Musée d’Art Moderne. Soulages’ subtle but confident variations on his basic theme, sometimes bejewelled with colour but normally relying on tonal contrast, fitted the American taste for what was then called action painting, and still invites comparison with Franz Kline’s work after 1950. Like a Romantic painter of around 1800, though with entirely modern means, Soulages sought and attained sublimity.

    In short, the fifties brought recognition, and the sixties saw Soulages extending and re-inventing his art in a strikingly international, rather than French or even European spirit. At times he built up his dark structures using broader brushes and then also brooms and broad squeegees, leaving only small interstices for light to strike through. Blacks could become dark blues; paint could be made translucent. Paint could also, in the seventies, become glossy and striated, reflecting light instead of obstructing it, in ways that made his successive brush strokes into a pictorial narrative. More recently flat, matt areas of canvas have often been set against areas of glossy texture in such a way as to re-emphasise the consistently architectural character of his compositions, as well as the tactile and immediate qualities of his painting.

 Norbert Lynton