Oscar Gauthier

Oscar Jacques Gautier was a contemporary French painter, born in Fours in 1921. Gauthier studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1941 and 1947. At the same time he worked at the studio of Friesz. He also studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. He traveled to the United States and upon his return to France in 1948 after World War II he met the artists Sonia Delauny, Albert Gleizes, Francois Picabia, and Hans Hartung along with such younger artists as Jean-Michel Atlan and Guillaume Corneille. Due to the German occupation of Paris Gauthier was denied many years of creative opportunities. Nevertheless he still became one of the first painters of his generation to "discover" abstraction. In 1944, 1945 and 1946 Gauthier exhibited at the Salon des Moins de trente ans and was also featured in a number of exhibitions including: Salon d'Octobre, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Salon des Comparaisons, Salon de Mai and the Salon d'Automne. He also participated in several group exhibitions such as Fifty Years of Abstract Painting, Paris, 1957; The 10th Prix Lissone, Milan, 1957; Nouvelle Ecole de Paris at the Kunsthalle, Mannheim, 1958; The 6th Biennale, Sao Paolo, 1961; and lastly The Age of Jazz at the Musée Galliéra, Paris, 1967.

Gauthier's work may be placed in the tradition of what the art critic Michel Ragon referred to as 'paysagisme abstrait' or "Abstract Landscape" until the 1960's when his work reflected a somewhat Europeanized version of the American Pop Art movement.