AB-62A-1962-002 — Figures (1962)

Technical information

Title: Figures
Date: 1962
Technique: Pastel
Dimensions: 48 × 62 cm
Location: Private collection

Biographical / historical context

In 1962, Breuillaud is at a hinge moment: the end of the MP2 cycle (1958–1961) gives way to the first, softer emergences of a floating organic figuration, less tectonic in its internal tensions.

He still draws on the legacy of 1959–1961—membranes, compact masses, internal mutations—yet a form of appeasement begins to appear. Pastel becomes a privileged medium for this transition, offering chromatic breathing space before the great densities of 1963.

1962 is not yet the year of nocturnes or red explosions: it is marked by an aerial weighting, as if forms were seeking to reorganise themselves before the shifts of 1963 (series A/B/C). This pastel belongs clearly to this intermediate zone: a slow fusion figuration, where the body becomes liquid again.

Formal / stylistic description

An interlacing of anthropomorphic figures—dissolved, stretched, sometimes barely recognisable—emerges from a milky blue ground, almost aqueous. The palette contrasts with the telluric reds of previous years: here a cold blue is crossed by pink and orange flesh tones that seem to float in a liquid medium.

The lines, typical of Breuillaud’s pastel work, are vibrating but never aggressive: they envelop forms rather than cutting them out. Faces, at times reduced to a pair of eyes or embryonic silhouettes, remain light and opalescent.

Notable features include the dilution of bodies into soft, almost amniotic structures; the absence of a hierarchical centre—the composition is circular and breathing; very gentle modelling, without the cracking or thick textures of oil; and a rare clarity for this period, a prelude to certain diaphanous works of 1963.

The whole forms a broad sheet of life, with upwellings of forms that are barely stabilised. Figures (1962) is a crucial transitional work: it captures a moment when the figure—still human—begins to dissolve in order to become “organic”. It is the last great phase of softness before the shifts of 1963.

Comparative analysis / related works

The work sits clearly between the last 1961 MP2 paintings—still very compact and dark—and the first 1963-A works, where “membrane-figures” appear in a more incisive form, often in dry or mixed techniques.

It remains close to the light pastels of 1959–1960, but with a new fluidity of arrangement. It directly prefigures the white and blue forms of 1963-A (for example The Monster I and The Monster II), yet without their inner violence.

Within the overall corpus, the piece occupies a singular position: it announces mutation, but without the dramatic tension that will mark 1963. It is a rare bridge-work in its gentleness.

Justification of dating and attribution

Decisive elements support a 1962 dating (segment 62A): the pastel blue/pink palette typical of the 1962 transition; the absence of structuring black (characteristic of the later MP3 around 1965); the use of pastel (largely abandoned after 1962 in favour of oil and ink); and a “soft cluster” composition, still far from the verticalities of 1963–64.

All evidence aligns with a 1962 placement, within a phase of “gentle internal reorganisation”.