GEN PAUL

"PORTRAIT D'EDITEUR"

OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED

FRANCE, DATED 1928

23 X 19 INCHES

After Gen Paul was wounded in World War I and lost his leg he was no longer able to practice his original profession as a wallpaper hanger. So he turned to painting. Painting was a natural thing for him. He had no formal training, never studied or visited an art school; but he felt in his blood an inborn drive to express himself through that medium. He was an instinctive painter, one of those artists who are not made, but born as natural talents.

The first years, up until 1925, were his formative years, influenced by his friends Utrillo and Frank Will, in which h created the most exquisite decorative paintings. This period ended abruptly in about 1925 when he abandoned this more of expression inventing a new, highly emotional and disturbing art, an expressionism of movement. Among influences were the great masters, such as El Greco, Goya, whose paintings he saw at the Prado in Madrid, Romanesque sculpture, as well as Toulouse-Latrec, whose work he probably knew through Utrillo’s mother, Suzanne Valadon.

To achieve this expressionistic movement Gen Paul used six visual devises, partly of his own invention and partly borrowed from other sources and adapted to his own purposes. First, he divided the canvas diagonally into dark and light areas. Next, he placed the figures and objects diagonally. He used these devices to such a great extent that sometimes the composition of his painting became an interplay of X’s, diagonals and triangles. Third, he extended the dimensions of the paintings, vertically or horizontally, by zigzag compositions, and fourth, he consistently elongated the figures to he top right or left of the canvas. The fifth expressive device he used was the "grosses pognes" or big fists, which often occupy a disproportionately large area of the painting. The sixth device was the juxtaposition of an abstract triangular area and a clearly distinguishable realistic triangular area.

To further enhance a sense of movement he used several techniques. He adopted a loose, free, violent brushstroke, which varied from a harsh angular style to one of smooth rounded overflowing shapes. His gouaches and drawings were executed with the alternation of a gestural loose rhythmical line to a very precise elegant line, or short thick, straight lines. In addition, he used a calligraphy with its own signs and symbol, which he himself developed. His oil paintings and gouaches varied from those with light clear colors to those of dark brownish tones.

At the same time, he totally abandoned the goal of sticking to one distinctive style alone. In contrast, he used several styles of his own, changing them as his needs and desires dictated; beginning to emphasize the concept of "no style." Similarly, he used the subject matter only as the pretext to act on the canvas. Thus, both style and subject matter became the motives to attain his goals: a passionate disturbing movement, a metaphor of his inner suffering, of being crippled, translated onto the canvas.
In 1928 at the Bing Exhibition, where Gen Paul exhibited for the first time, it was already recognized that he had created something new. He was considered to be one of the great painters, elevated to the same level as Soutine and Rouault. It was though that his art was a continuation of the Futurist movement. No one recognized that Gen Paul’s art of movement was something totally different from the movement of the Futurists. He was highly intense, emotional, the very opposite of the intellectual movement the futurists represented. But how could anyone recognize then the intrinsic quality of Gen Paul’s work? His art was virtually 30 years ahead of its time; it was already what we term today "action-painting."

In fact, Gen Paul’s approach to painting was in many ways similar, if not the same s the leading American figures of action painting, the abstract expressionists. If one compares Gen Paul’s technique to Willem de Kooning, the key figure of this movement, the degree of relationship becomes obvious. Gen Paul was essentially working on a "no style" concept. He varied simultaneously among six or seven styles, changing from dark paintings to light ones, from realistic shapes to semi abstract ones, from elongated figures to compressed ones, from depth to no depth, from soft tonalities to harsh ones, from gestural strokes to calligraphy. For de Kooning too, there existed the "no style" concept of painting. Even in the approach to painting they were almost identical. Both drew constantly and both used calligraphy with special signs and symbol. Gen Paul’s concept of a painting never being finished was present in de Kooning’s work in a later era.

Therefore, one should not be surprised that even in the choice of the subject matter there are striking similarities to be found. Gen Paul’s "Nude," 1926, could be a prototype for de Kooning’s women of the 1950’s. Like them, the figure has no defined contours, creating a oneness with the background. The color palette is almost identical. Gen Paul’s "Children," 1926, and "Swing," 1937, anticipate de Kooning’s "Clam Diggers," 1964. The background of Gen Paul’s "Bandoneon," 1926, is almost the same as de Kooning’s "Small Paintings III" of 1958. This painting is and excellent example of Gen Paul’s concept of the subject matter being no mote than pretext for the act of painting. Many of Gen Paul’s achievements are contained in this painting: the forceful diagonal elongation, the big fists, the zigzag line of the accordion, its almost abstract quality, all adding up to an immensely strong and intense painting.

As one can compare Gen Paul’s work with that of de Kooning, he could also well be compared with the other abstract expressionists. In the intensity of feelings expressed in his canvases, Gen Paul came close to Jackson Pollock and Wols. They all paid the price. For them was painting such a commitment, that painting became an act of self-destruction. Gen Paul too would have destroyed himself were it not for Celine, who with enormous devotion, one could say, saved Gen Paul’s life after his nearly fatal collapse in 1929, by preventing him from drinking.

Comparing Gen Paul with de Kooning or the other abstract expressionists, one has to consider they were of a much younger generation. Gen Paul’s achievements, were well ahead of theirs, making him a true innovator, and ranking him among the great European Expressionists.