Jean Degottex (1918-1988) is a French painter, considered as a major artist of the abstraction movement in the second half of the twentieth century and a significant inspiration for contemporary art.
Known in particular for his initial proximity with the lyrical abstraction movement, and for André Breton’s admiration, he followed a singular path, each time period exhausting some formal possibility to open the door to what follows: from gesture to sign, from sign to writing, from writing to the line. His work remains that of extreme minimalism, where rigor never takes precedence over sensitivity.
His work earned him the Kandinsky Prize in 1951 and the French National Painting Prize in 1981. His works are present in many public collections, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), The Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, the Guggenheim (New York) and the Pinacoteca Gutai (Osaka).