Asked in 1987 to reduce thirty-five years of work to a single sentence, Morellet replied: “Morellet, monstrous son of Mondrian and Picabia, has developed since 1952 a whole programme of systems as rigorous as they are absurd, using the simplest figures of geometry (straight lines, angles, planes...) with the most varied materials (canvas, wire mesh, neon, steel, adhesives, branches...) on all kinds of supports (canvases, walls, statues, architecture, “landscapes”...).”
François Morellet (1926-2016), a prolific self-taught artist, developed through his paintings, sculptures and installations a radical approach to geometric abstraction over a career spanning more than six decades. Working chiefly with basic geometric forms, Morellet adopted a method of rigorous objectivity and personal detachment, drawing on a wide range of materials: steel, neon tubing, adhesive tape, wire mesh, wood and more. He sought to control the process of creation and to demystify the Romantic mythology of art and the inspired artist, justifying each of his choices by a principle fixed in advance, one that could even bring chance into certain components of a work. Morellet’s playfulness and humour also surface in his titles, which often contain puns, parodies or portmanteau words.