Michel Seuphor // Portrait of Hans (Jean) Arp

From his first years in Paris, Seuphor inherited a lifelong friendship with Jean Arp. It wasn’t a coincidance that a screenprint by Arp graced the front cover of the 1949 initial release of Seuphor’s reference work on abstract art ‘L’Art Abstrait’.

Seuphor portrayed his artistic ally in 1950 – at the time he was working on the first biography on Piet Mondriaan – in Ascona. In the Swiss town, Arp was studying essential natural forms in his immediate environment:

‘In Ascona zeichnete ich mit Pinsel und Tusche abgebrochene Äste, Wurzeln, Gräser, Steine, die der See an den Strand gespült hatte. Diese Formen vereinfachte ich und vereinigte ihr Wesen in bewegten Ovalen, Sinnbildern der ewigen Verwandlung und des Werdens der Körper.’

That search is also recognisable in the portrait drawn by his friend.

Michel Seuphor

Portrait of Hans (Jean) Arp

195o

27 x 2o,3 cm

ink on papier // signed and dated: Ascona, 195o

Provenance: former collection Michel Seuphor