• Camille Bryen
• French, 1907-1977
• "Composition #104"
• Oil on Canvas
• 28 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches
• Signed lower right, 1955
• Price on Request

Provenance: Private collection, Paris from 2004 until present Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Albert Loeb, October 1955 Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1959 Literature: J. Boutet-Loyer, Camille Bryen: l’oeuvre peint, No. 104, Illustrated p. 124. Camille Bryen was one of the leaders of the Art Informel movement, otherwise known as Lyrical Abstraction, in Europe during the mid-twentieth century. Alongside other members such as Jean-Michel Atlan, Jean Bazaine, Georges Mathieu among others, Bryen was not so much interested in the final composition of the work, rather he saw the process as one where he could vent his subconscious. Much like the parallel American movement of Abstract Expressionism, his works are often executed spontaneously and with speed. He once expressed that he wanted to dissolve the form, and not only the geometry, but noticed in the process that forms continued to reappear which he called “non-non-formes”. A poet himself, Bryen was greatly inspired in his painting by famed and controversial French poet Arthur Rimbaud; often quoting Rimbaud’s writings and their relationship to his own theories on painting.