Soulages–Hartung Exhibition in Paris: Elective Affinities at Perrotin Gallery

Two leading postwar figures of abstraction engage in a dialogue during an exhibition... The galerie Perrotin dedicates an exhibition to Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung, titled Soulages-Hartung: Affinités électives, running from 25 April to 30 May 2026. The show offers a cross-perspective on these two pivotal figures of abstraction, highlighting their artistic kinship, exchanges and shared lines of inquiry. The display rests on an unpublished interview about their friendship, broadcast for the first time by the Fondation Hartung-Bergman, as well as on archives and several items from their studios.

The exhibition takes as its starting point an unreleased video document, complemented by letters, photographs, notebooks and a body of works that reveal the dialogue between the two painters over the years. The gallery also presents tools that have been unusually removed from their studios, offering concrete insight into their working methods. The route also underscores the importance of Mediterranean settings in their work, in Sète for Soulages and in Antibes for Hartung. Their relationship went beyond intellectual affinity: they swapped ideas, worked in close proximity, and exchanged works, such as a Brou de noix given by Soulages to Hartung in 1948, shown here on an exceptional basis.

The dialogue between the works and the documents also allows us to revisit aspects of their trajectories that are sometimes less well known. In the 1940s and 1950s, encouraged by gallery owners such as Lydia Conti and Myriam Prévot, Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages made themselves known with a vocabulary of lines and masses that diverged from traditional geometric frameworks. This recognition also sparked hostile reactions, as illustrated by Waldemar George’s 1955 remark: "Hartung and Soulages seem to be turning in the infernal circle of a satanic and apocalyptic art." The exhibition also examines their relationship to the sacred, to interiority, to chiaroscuro, and to light emerging from shadow, while drawing attention to their more discreet use of blue in the 1980s.

• To be read
• Free exhibitions to visit in May 2026 in Paris and the Île-de-France region
• Pierre Soulages, another light: the painter's works on paper on show at the Musée du Luxembourg
• Death of Pierre Soulages, the renowned artist and master of "outrenoir," at 102

Beyond the convergences, the Perrotin Gallery also highlights what sets the two artists apart. Hartung develops a more explode-driven, centrifugal gesturality, while Soulages keeps a more controlled, resolute construction. This gap offers a sharper reading of their relationship, a mix of proximity and difference. Taken together, the show invites a timely reflection on two major paths in abstract painting as the moment of their first meeting nears its 80th anniversary, to be commemorated in 2027 at the Soulages Museum in Rodez and at the Hartung-Bergman Foundation in Antibes.

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