Jean Dewasne, Constructed Color:
From Anti-Sculpture to Architecture

The Matisse Museum, drawing on a recent donation from the French State, presents the
multifaceted work of Jean Dewasne, a master of French Constructive Abstraction.
Winner of the Kandinsky Prize in 1945, he participated in the national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1962 and again in 1968. In 1966, Harald Szeemann dedicated his first retrospective to him at the
Kunsthalle Bern.
The artist behind the compositions of the two murals at the Grande Arche de la Défense (the largest
painting in the world), the metro systems of Rome and Hanover, and the color scheme of the Centre Pompidou, Dewasne has been largely forgotten by the art world for the past 30 years. This exhibition thus re-examines the work of an artist deeply committed to his practice, resolutely modern in his engagement with science and his connections with businesses in Denmark, the Netherlands, and France (including Renault), and innovative in his approach to architecture. His anti-sculpture, Red Habit, last seen in
Pittsburgh in 1975, will be presented on this occasion along with 60 previously unseen works.