Galerie Templon is pleased to announce the representation of Martial Raysse, one of the most important artists on the contemporary art scene.
Martial Raysse, 2023 © Tous droits réservés
A self-taught painter with a passion for literature, Martial Raysse, born in 1936, began his career by assembling brightly colored plastic objects in boxes and Plexiglas columns. In response to a consumer society with its new mythologies, he developed what he called a “hygiene of vision,” borrowing from the most trivial aspects of everyday life and adapting the language of grand painting to a “new, sanitized world.” Swimming pools, beaches, signs, quotidian objects, and female faces and bodies populated his work relentlessly. In 1962, his exhibition Raysse Beach demonstrated that he was the only member of the Nouveau Réalisme movement who could legitimately claim the label of “Pop,” alongside his American counterparts -Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann.
MARTIAL RAYSSE La Paix, 2023 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 300 × 500 cm — 118 × 196 3/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist's studio
Raysse’s move to the United States in 1963 reaffirmed his taste for the détournement of objects, the integration of neon lights and advertising imagery, as well as a playful yet irreverent revisiting of great paintings from the past. Experimenting with video and cinema, working tirelessly in sculpture and drawing, Raysse fused high culture with a childlike approach to art. His uncompromising independence, which he never relinquished, eventually distanced him from Pop Art in the wake of the events of May ’68: “Now, international good taste is within reach of every petty rentier of painting, just as was the case with Art Informel. Best to avoid it.”
MARTIAL RAYSSE Now, 2017 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 209 × 175.5 cm — 82 1/4 × 69 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist's studio
In the 1970s, the artist turned toward grand painting - a shift that was not a retreat but an act of absolute courage, far removed from the official art of the time. His aversion to dogma and his taste for going against the grain marked his return to France - first to the Paris region, then to Dordogne, where he still lives and works today. His vast and profuse compositions now reveal the farce, if not the chaos, of humanity in motion. Created beyond trends and dictates, his joyful apocalypses attest to the way in which Martial Raysse - who never ceases to observe, experiment, and reinvent his practice - remains one of the greatest modern artists.
MARTIAL RAYSSE La Reine du Monde, 2018 Huile sur toile | Oil on canvas 200 × 165 × 3 cm — 78 3/4 × 65 × 1 1/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist's studio
Few French artists have attained such international recognition or occupied such a commanding place in art history. His works are housed in the world’s most prestigious museums. Exhibited as early as 1960 at MoMA in New York and in 1965 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, he represented France at the 1966 Venice Biennale and was the subject of retrospectives at the Munich Museum of Modern Art in 1971, the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in 1992, and the Centre Pompidou in 2014, the year he received the Praemium Imperiale in Japan. In 2015, Palazzo Grassi hosted his first major monographic exhibition in Italy. His works were more recently presented in a solo exhibition at the Musée Paul Valéry in Sète, in 2023.
From Left to Right: MARTIAL RAYSSE Le grand Jury, 2022 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 300 × 500 cm — 118 × 196 3/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles – New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist's studio, MARTIAL RAYSSE, La Peur, 2023 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 300 × 400 cm — 118 × 157 1/2 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles – New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist's studio
In January 2026, Galerie Templon will present his first exhibition of recent works. For more information about the exhibit and these other announcements, please visit Templon’s site.
