Kijno

Ladislas Kijno (Warsaw, 1921 – Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 2012) is one of the leading figures of French lyrical abstraction. Raised in the mining region of northern France, he studied philosophy in Lille before devoting himself to painting. A long stay in a sanatorium on the Plateau d’Assy brought him close to Father Couturier and to the building of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce, alongside the greatest artists of his time.

In the early 1950s he developed his signature technique of crumpled paper: the support is folded, crushed and then painted, catching the light and giving the surface an unprecedented vibration. A pioneer in the use of spray paint from the 1960s onwards, he combined splashes, drips, collage and writing in a gestural painting where black converses with bursts of pure colour.

He devoted vast cycles of homage to the poets and figures who inhabited him, from Pablo Neruda to Arthur Rimbaud, and represented France at the Venice Biennale in 1980. In 1999 he created the great rose window of Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille cathedral in Lille. His work is held in numerous public collections in France and abroad.